Hot Stuff
by Lampito
Summary: Dean misses Jimi the hellhound terribly. When he and Sam are adopted by one of Rumsfeld's puppies, they couldn't be happier, although he has inherited some, er, interesting traits from his daddy...BONUS END CHAPTER: Dean's Awesome Choc Chip Cookie Recipe
1. Prologue

**HOT STUFF**

DISCLAIMER: Not mine. Probably a good thing, because there's no room in the garage (my bikes have first dibs on the undercover lock-up) and the arguments about the hot water running out would end in tears.

SUMMARY: Sam always wanted a dog. Dean misses Jimi the show-winning chick magnet hellhound terribly, even the lavender-scented farting. When they are adopted by one of Rumsfeld's puppies, they couldn't be happier, although he has inherited some, er, interesting traits from his daddy. Still, Dean already practically raised a sasquatch - how hard can a half-hellhound Rottweiler be?

Set a few days after 'Can We Keep Him?'. Can be read alone, but please feel free to read that one first, and get the back-story. Leave a review! They make me so pathetically happy... *sniff*

RATING: T, because there will be Language. Always with the Language. I curse the episode that taught my husband to say 'assbutt'.

BLAME: Lies ENTIRELY with the people who were so encouraging about my earlier efforts, and especially the ones who asked for a sequel to 'Can We Keep Him?' - on that topic, can I just state that the line about somebody writing a Dean/Rumsfeld fic was a joke, okay? It was Sam teasing his brother. I wasn't serious. You all get that, right? Right?

* * *

**Prologue**

"What a sweet old lady," mused Sam, "It's a real pity we didn't get to talk to her while she was still alive."

"You, Sam, it's a pity that _you_ didn't get to talk to her while she was alive," Dean corrected him grumpily. The ghost of Eulalia Picklesworth, deceased librarian and dog-lover, had been laid to rest with no difficulty, but his ankle was sore, he'd squashed his M&Ms, and worst of all he smelled of lavender.

"Come on, Dean," argued Sam, "How often can you have a rational discussion with a ghost about why she's still hanging around? Wasn't a civilized conversation a pleasant change from being hurled head-first into the nearest cement cherub?"

"The sad thing is knowing that talking to an octogenarian dead librarian is the longest conversation you've had with a female for a very long time," sighed Dean sadly, "Where did I go wrong, Sammy?"

"She was a really interesting person," continued Sam, "She kept her job as an assistant librarian right after she married - that was unheard of sixty years ago!"

"On the one hand, it's kind of reassuring to discover that Mr Vanilla has a kink after all," interrupted Dean, "On the other, finding out that it involves you having a thing about octogenarian dead librarians is disturbing..."

"... AND she went back to work after she had her first child - she had to face down the library board, it made the local newspaper, but she stuck to her guns..." continued Sam in admiration.

"The'octogenarian' bit it taking the whole cougar thing beyond ridiculous, and the 'dead' bit is illegal as well as just seriously twisted..."

"She served on the Decimal Classification Editorial Policy Committee for four terms, she was on the board of the local animal shelter for nearly twenty years..." Sam tried, valiantly attempting to steer the conversation above waist height, but Dean's mind had slipped its collar and gone wandering down Libido Lane.

"I can kind of see the librarian angle, though," his older brother conceded, "It's the hair-in-a-bun and the glare-at-you-over-the-glasses and the severe expression, you know, so strict on the outside... do you remember the librarian in that little place in Ohio, the leap year florist haunting, the one who threw you out of the library for correcting the Latin on the Roman History Week poster?"

"God, how could I forget?" muttered Sam, "All I was trying to do was explain the difference between a nominative and an imperative! I even used my own red pen! I mean, it was aimed at kids, you can't go around screwing up declensions that badly and expect them to learn..."

"Well, I can tell you, she was just as strict after dark, ohhhh yeah..."

"Dean!" yelped Sam, giving his brother a dose of Bitchface #6™ (I SO Do NOT Want To Hear The Gory Details Of One Of Your Sexual Conquests, Jerk).

Dean shot a pitying look at his brother. "Maybe I should've left you talking to Mrs Picklesworth," he said, "At least let her go 'Shhhhhh!' at you and maybe threaten to spank you for being a naughty, noisy boy. You need to get laid, Sam."

"Fine, fine, I give up," groaned Sam, "Just buy me a ticket for the Dead Librarians B&D Picnic, if it will stop you taking your usual unhealthy interest in my private life."

"I'm just trying to look out for my baby brother," asserted Dean, reaching down and rubbing at his ankle. "Ow. On second thoughts, I should've talked to her and let you dig up her dog."

"That was mean of her family," Sam said, "All she wanted was a decent burial for poor Phoebe. She left them her house, her books, and all they could do with her dog when it died was throw it over the back fence. They're lucky all she did was haunt the laundry hamper. If you ask me, they deserved more than being pelted with dirty socks every Thursday."

"Poor Phoebe?" asked Dean incredulously, "That 'poor Phoebe' tried to savage me!"

"Dean, she wasn't trying to savage you..."

"Just dig up the dog and rebury her, you said," griped Dean, "I've talked to Mrs Picklesworth and she just wants her dog laid to rest under her favorite bush, you said. You didn't tell me it was hanging around too and it would try to eat me!"

"She didn't try to eat you - didn't you see her tail wagging?"

"I nearly lost a foot to a dog ghost!"

"You tripped on a half-rotten fence post in a vacant lot, Dean..."

"Did you see it attack me? It attacked me!"

"Dean, she was trying to lick you..."

"It was _tasting_ me, Sam! Where were you with the rock salt, huh, while I was practically savaged by a dead dog?"

"Dean, I couldn't shoot at the dog without hitting you, and I didn't think you were in trouble..."

Dean peered down from the lofty peaks of High Dudgeon. "Not in trouble? Did you see the snarl on that thing? It tried to chew my leg off!"

"Dean, that was one of the happiest doggy grins I've ever seen..."

"I had to whack it with the shovel!"

"Dean..."

"An undead ghost dog beast was trying to maul me, and my brother stood there and watched!"

"Dean, it was the ghost of a deaf, six-pound, eighteen-year-old Pomeranian with only three teeth left..."

"It pushed me over! I fell into a lavender bush! It lavenderized me!"

"Dean, over-reaction, much? You tripped over your own feet trying to whack the poor little thing with the shovel. Self-inflicted injury, bro."

"I smell like an old lady!" Dean whined, "I smell like... I smell like Jimi." He subsided into unhappy silence.

"I miss him too, Dean," said Sam quietly. "But you were right - he's happy in Heaven, causing administrative havoc and digging up the Firmament. It's okay to miss him, you know."

"Talk about ungrateful relatives," grumbled Dean, changing the subject in a tone of voice that indicated that he had no wish to Talk About Our Feelings. "I'm going to disinherit you. I will leave my vast fortune, my extensive shares portfolio, and _both_ my beach houses to charity, and you, ungrateful little brother, will not get a cent." He paused thoughtfully. "On second thoughts, I will leave you fifty dollars. That should be enough to get a haircut."

Sam rolled his eyes. This was shaping up to be a long drive...

"Mind you," continued Dean, salvaging M&M fragments, "That was a nice homily you delivered. I liked the bit about all dogs going to Heaven. 'We commit the mortal remains of Kelsey Park Goodgirl to the Earth, beneath her favorite rosemary bush, as a sign of remembrance and the devotion between Phoebe and her beloved owner.' Hell, I might even get you to do my funeral."

"Could be a problem with that, Dean," mused Sam seriously, "On account of there being no such thing as a condom bush to bury you under. Perhaps I could scatter your ashes around a distillery? Or a mattress factory, maybe?" He beamed angelically at his brother.

"Eyes on the road, bitch," scowled Dean, "Next time, we're only taking the case if the dead librarian was cute. And you dig up the dog."

"Okay, okay," agreed Sam in a placating tone, "I will let you vet all cases involving dead librarians from now on. What did Bobby say?" he changed the subject.

"He says he has something he wants to show us," answered Dean.

"A job?"

"No, he said it's nothing to worry about, just that we'll find it interesting," supplied Dean. "Knowing him, it's probably some sixteenth century book of Latin grammar exercises. No doubt the two of you will be up all night, boldly conjugating verbs no man has conjugated before!" He cocked an eyebrow at Sam, who had a premonition that had nothing to do with being one of Azazel's special children.

"You're about to tell me that it's not the sort of conjugation you're interested in, aren't you?" sighed Sam.

"Yahtzee!" smirked Dean, "While you and Bobby yuk it up over some dusty book, I'll go find myself a girl who knows how to handle dangling participles..."

"You must be the only person on the planet who can make grammar sound obscene, Dean."

"I know. Putting the sin into syntax. It's a gift. Don't hate me because I'm talented."

**...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ... oooooOOOOOooooo...**

They were still bickering when Sam pulled the Impala into Bobby's yard two days later. He was at the door to greet them, smiling hugely. Sam's eyes narrowed.

"Bobby, what are you smirking at?" he asked suspiciously.

"Me? Smirking?" asked Bobby innocently. "I'm not smirking. No sir, no smirking here. This is a no smirking area. Medical authorities warn that smirking is a health hazard."

"You're right, that's not a smirk," agreed Dean, "It's a shit-eating grin."

"What, I can't just be pleased to see you two idjits?" Bobby beamed at them.

The Winchesters exchanged A Look.

"Christo," they chorused.

Bobby sighed heavily. "I'm hurt. Truly hurt. You know I'm always happy every time I see you two chuckleheads still in one piece, it means that I can go to bed tonight without crying myself to sleep with worry..."

"Okay, now I know he's lying," growled Dean.

"Who are you, and what have you done with Bobby?" demanded Sam.

"Well, pardon me, Sir Grumpy Pants and Little Mr Sunshine," humphed Bobby, "I think we need to pay a visit to the Executive Officer In Charge Of Cheering Up, Ms Rumsfeld Singer. Follow me, gentlemen." Bobby turned and headed inside.

Dean shot Sam a bewildered look. "If not possession, then, what?"

Sam shrugged. "Skinwalker? Early onset Alzheimers? Got shat on by The Bluebird Of Happiness? Hey, Bobby, wait up!" They followed him anxiously, Sam asking "Didn't you say you had something to show us..."

Dean stopped dead in his tracks, partly because he walked into his brother, who had also stopped dead in his tracks, and partly startled by the indignant yipping coming from the laundry.

"Oh. Oh," said Sam softly.

"What? What?" demanded Dean, pushing past his brother. He paused, then said, "Oh."

In the laundry, Rumsfeld lounged contentedly in a whelping box. One little black ball of fur curled contentedly against her belly; another stalked the tip of her tail. A third was held gently but firmly between Rumsfeld's front paws, being given a bath - the reluctant bathee was the source of the outraged squalling.

Dean appeared to be holding his breath. "Are they... Bobby, are they..."

"Yup," grinned Bobby, "They're Jimi's. Guess I was too slow with the bucket of water."

"How old are they?" asked Sam, suddenly full of questions. "Why didn't you tell us! Are they boys, or girls? Do they have names yet?"

"I didn't tell you, because the last thing I needed was two idjit would-be midwives mother-henning around and annoying Rumsfeld," answered Bobby. "They're nearly four weeks old. Two girls, and a boy. The homebody there is Janis. The fearless hunter stalking The Wild Tail-Tip is Joni, and the reluctant bather, well..."

"Jimi," breathed Dean, a grin spreading across his face. "Jimi Junior." He knelt down by the box, as the pup finally squirmed free of his mother's washing. His little face turned towards Dean, and the tiny thing flung himself across the box, trying to scale the wall, yipping insistently. Dean picked him up, and he broke into a happy puppy grin.

"Well, hello there," crooned Dean, ruffling the pup's ears, as it climbed his shirt, tail wagging furiously, "Don't you look like your daddy? Yes you do! Yes you do! He hated a b-a-t-h, just like you..."

"Can I hold him? Can I hold him?" Sam was practically hopping from one foot to the other, making Dean think of him as a seven-year-old again. He handed the pup over.

"Careful, Sam, he's only little..."

"I am, I am..."

"Get a hand under him! Don't let him wiggle away!"

"Dean, I've got him! Hey, little guy!" The pup yipped and wriggled excitedly in Sam's arms.

"Hey, careful! Don't drop him!"

"I won't, already! Look at you, then! Who's a happy puppy?" The pup's enthusiastic wriggling intensified, and he yipped in excitement. "Who's a happy, happy puppy? Who's a really, really happy... Aaaaaaaaaaargh!" Sam's eyes crossed, and he handed the pup quickly back to Dean then started slapping at his shirt where it had caught fire.

"What? Sam!" started Dean, as Bobby threw a bucket of water at Sam. It happened to be a bucket that was soaking some old towels from the whelping box, but the contents were wet, and put out the small fire.

Dean stared at Sam, who was staring at his shirt and steaming ever so slightly. "What the hell just happened?"

"Um," said Sam, a look of confusion on his face, "I think he... peed on me..."

"What? What?" Dean peered down at the pup, who looked happily unrepentant. "Are you telling me that he inherited his daddy's... alien blood pee?"

"No!" declared Bobby emphatically, as Sam attempted fruitlessly to mop at his scorched-and-now-soaking shirt, "It's only happened a couple of times, when he's been really, really excited."

"He's done it before?" asked Dean. "And you didn't think to warn us that this pup sets things on fire, because...?"

"He hasn't set anything on fire before!" Bobby said indignantly.

"You just said it's happened before!"

"He's only left scorch marks before now." Bobby scratched his head. "But then again, I've never seen him this excited before. Anyway, once you house-train him, it won't be a problem. He's only half-hellhound; maybe he'll grow out of it."

"Once we... " Dean looked from Bobby to Sam, who was grinning from ear to ear. He looked down at the pup again. A flash of red highlights crackled across the big brown eyes, and Jimi Junior sighed contentedly, snuggling into the crook of his elbow. Dean smiled, cradling the pup close.

"Your daddy was a chick magnet, you know - I guess you can't help it if you're hot stuff."

"We can train him to the Hunt," said Sam, "I wonder if he's inherited any other traits from Jimi?"

"Well, seeing as he had the good sense to set fire to a paisley shirt, I'm sure he'll have other attributes of awesomeness."

"Dean..."

"Maybe I can train him to do something about your hair, just a little off the ends..."

"Jerk."

* * *

It could probably stand alone as a one-shot, but I have an inkling of a plot for Jimi Jr's first job, and if the Chocolate-Powered Inspiration Fairy will come to the party, I'll carry on. Remember, all reviews are tax deductible - you will get some internets refunded at the end of the financial year.


	2. Chapter 1

Holy crap, it's true - reviews really DO put a rocket up the Chocolate-Powered Update Inspiration Fairy! Thank you, kind reviewers (and Happy Birthday to midian125, may you get lots of presentage), for the encouragement and the warm fuzzies (just like farting in your bike leathers...) Let's see where this story goes - I'm game if you are...

**

* * *

**

**Chapter 1**

"That dog is gonna lose the use of his legs," growled Bobby. Sam looked up from the translation he was poring over, Jimi Jr sitting in his lap. Bobby found himself on the receiving end of two pairs of kicked-puppy eyes.

"That's not true," countered Sam, ruffling Jimi's ears, "He's providing moral support, and keeping me warm." Jimi humphed in agreement.

"That might be cute while he's only three months old," commented Bobby, heading for the sofa, "But when he goes up to a hundred and forty pounds, you're going to regret letting him..."

_Squooonk_

"God's tits!" yelped Bobby, leaping up from the sofa. Sam broke into a smile.

"Oh, you found Honky Duck!" he exclaimed happily, as Jimi jumped from his lap and trotted over to the sofa to retrieve the bedraggled-looking rubber chicken toy that Bobby had sat on. "We've been looking for that."

"That dog has more toys than a fucking rock star," grumped Bobby, as Jimi chomped gleefully into Honky Duck. "I swear, Sam, you get him excited enough to pee and scorch the floor, I will rub _your_ nose in it."

"It's important for him to have lots of play," stated Sam, taking hold of the other end of Honky Duck as Jimi solicited a bout of rassling . "Now he's separating from his Mom and is bonding with his human pack..."

_Squooonk_

"... he has to have opportunity to interact and play..."

_SquoooooOOOOOnk_

"... it's essential for his intellectual development..."

_Squonk_

"...that he have a chance..."

_Squonk_

"..to initiate play..."

_Squonk squonk squonk squOOOOOOOOnk_

"... and learn about his human 'pack' structure..."

_Squooooooooonk_

"...and the way..."

_Squooooooooonk_

"...he fits in..."

_Squo-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-onk _

"...so he can trust his..."

_squonk squonk squonk SQUONK_

"...own initiative later..."

_SquooOOOOOOOOOOOOOO-splert_

With a slightly sad gurgling noise, Honky Duck underwent an acute traumatic bisection. Jimi sat down and chewed contentedly on his end, while Sam looked philosophically at his piece.

"Oh, well," he noted, "Honky Duck was suffering from a prolapsed squeaker, and developed a nasty sucking chest wound yesterday..."

Bobby rolled his eyes. "That animal is more spoiled than a pound of clams in a heatwave," he grumped, heading towards the kitchen with coffee on his mind, "It's time we found a job you idjits can take him along on. If he's going to learn to Hunt, he's going to have to do more than kill rubberYAAARGH!"

_Whungk_

"Balls," he muttered, testing the ankle he'd just rolled. A small blue pig skittered away from under his foot. Jimi yapped happily and pounced on it.

"Well done, Bobby," beamed Sam, "You found Oinker Shtoinker, he vanished..."

_Whuuuuuuungk_

"...about a week ago, and..."

_Whungk whungk whungk_

"...what with the teething, it's been..."

_Whungkwhungkwhungka WHUUUUUNGK_

"Sonofabitch!" The anguished yowl cut off Sam's explanation of the importance of chew toys for the proper development of teeth and jaw in a young dog. Bobby looked down at his feet.

"Did I just step on a toy called Meanie Deanie? Something to develop his appreciation for the amazing depth and breadth of human expression, perhaps?" he asked tartly.

Before Sam could make any comment about the importance of a pup learning key words and short phrases, Dean made his way inside, trailing the smell of rain with him, dabbing at his knuckles with a shop rag.

"Damned thing," he muttered, "Bobby, your torque wrench bit me. AND I got wet."

"Oh, no," wailed Sam, "Dean got wet! He's made of sugar, and he'll dissolve..." Dean threw the shop rag at him.

"Go whine to someone who cares," said Bobby, "I'm sure it aint the first time you've got yourself slapped trying to tighten your nuts…"

"Huh. Jimi's giving me sympathy," Dean snarked back, bending down to pat the pup who was butting him insistently in the leg with Oinker Shtoinker. "Hey, you found Oinker!"

_Whungk whuuuuungk_

"Clever boy!"

_Whu-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-whungk_

"Actually, it was Bobby who found Oinker…" corrected Sam.

"Clever boy!" Dean beamed at Bobby, and patted him on the hat. Bobby growled, and slapped the older Winchester upside the head. Undeterred, Dean reached to his back pocket and continued, "Hey, Jimi, look what I found!"

_Eeka eeka eeka_

Sam's face broke into a huge smile. "Octo-Rabbit!" he laughed, as Dean flourished the slightly threadbare tentacled fluffy toy. "You found Octo-Rabbit!" Dean squeaked Octo-Rabbit again, and threw it to Sam, who squeaked it and threw it back.

_Eeka eeka eeka ee-ee_

"Winchester passes to Winchester…"

"Yarmf!" yapped Jimi excitedly through a mouthful of toy, chomping into Oinker Shtoinker – _whungk whungk_ - as he galumphed from one brother to the other and back, watching Octo-Rabbit sail back and forth.

"… Who passes back to Winchester…"

_Eeka eeka_

"Yarmf!" Jimi threw himself at Sam's legs, getting an audible "Oof!" out of Sam and making him stumble to one knee, off balance.

"Winchester is tackled by Winchester!"

_whungk whungk_

"…He passes…"

_eeka ee-ee_

"Yarmf! Armf!"

"Oh no! Winchester fumbles it…" Dean dived to the floor, beating Jimi to the fallen toy by a hair's breadth. "He recovers, and…"

A large boot came to rest on his outstretched wrist.

"… and is intercepted by Referee Singer," growled Bobby, plucking the toy from Dean's hand, "Who confiscates the ball, knocks the players' heads together, eats the coach then bangs the three oldest cheerleaders." Three pairs of eyes, welling with disappointment, looked at him. "And you can all stop that. The next thing that goes 'honk', 'oink', 'squeak' or 'sonofabitch' in my hearing, I will use it for target practice until it's so full o' holes, you'll be saying, 'Well done, Bobby, you found the Swiss Cheese!'. Are we clear?"

"Yes, Bobby."

"Yes, Bobby."

"Arf."

"Seein' as you lot have so much energy to burn, I think it's time you headed out on a case with the youngster, there," he continued. "As I was sayin' to Sam, before I nearly had my ankle and my eardrums busted, it's time Jimi Junior learned to live on the road. If he's going to be a Hunters' dog, he's gotta start living the life. I've had a call from an old acquaintance who seems to have herself a problem that might be just the thing – I'm guessing low-wattage poltergeist, but you two chuckleheads and the voodoo child here can decide for yourselves when you've had a chance to check it out." He glared sternly at the Winchesters and Jimi. "Now, I will be in the kitchen organising some chow. If you idjits insist on playing Drive Bobby Nuts, go and do it outside."

"Not really an option," commented Sam, glancing out the window, "The rain's getting heavier."

"Then if I hear so much as a peep, we will play a new game called Bobby Plays Vet And Does Some Debarking."

"You can't do that!" gasped Dean, horrified, picking Jimi up and cuddling him, "It's inhumane!"

"It should be illegal," added Sam promptly, "And it is in a couple of states, now..."

"Who said anything about doin' it to the dog?" returned Bobby without looking around.

**...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo...**

The rain had set in for the night as Dean settled Jimi onto his bed blanket in the corner of the room. Sam was already asleep, snoring slightly, as Dean patted the pup goodnight and settled into his own bed. The rain drumming on the roof and pattering against the window was a soothing, soporific sound, and he was soon asleep.

Fifteen minutes later, neither brother so much as twitched when the first roll of thunder sounded in the distance.

Jimi hunkered down into his blanket, whining to himself. Then a scary light flashed and backlit the curtains, followed several seconds later by the frightening growling noise, louder this time.

"Yipe!" He let out a frightened yelp. Dean rolled over in his bed.

"Jimi?" The pup left his blanket and scuttled, tail between his legs, to Dean's bedside. Dean leaned down and ruffled his ears. "What's up, fella?"

The lightning flashed, then the thunder sounded again. Jimi flinched, then launched himself upwards onto Dean's bed, whimpering.

"Awwww, don't tell me you're afraid of the thunder?" said Dean, stroking the pup, who cowered against him, peered up at him with large, anxious eyes. "We'd better not tell Bobby, he'll never let you live it down…"

Another flash, another roll of thunder…

"YAIPE!" cried Jimi, shooting underneath the bedclothes like a furry missile. Dean let out a surprised yelp of his own.

"Yeeeep! Hey, careful with the merchandise down there…"

"Dean?" Sam stirred sleepily in his own bed. "Was that Jimi? Is he okay?"

"He's fine, Sam," replied Dean, "He's just scared of the light show." The big, anxious eyes appeared again from under the bedclothes. "It's okay, Jimi," he soothed the pup, feeling the furry little body trembling against him, "It's just a storm."

"Is he on your bed?" asked Sam.

"Wouldn't be the first time I had a shaggy little critter crawl into my bed and hide under the blankets because he was frightened of thunder," said Dean. "And he's settling down a lot quicker than you did, too."

"He's _in_ your bed?" Sam made a disbelieving noise. "Dude, I'm not sure if that's cute, or just desperate. Dean Winchester, living sex god, reduced to spending the night with a dog. Oh, how the mighty have fallen."

"And you accuse me of having my mind permanently in the gutter," sniffed Dean indignantly.

"I mean, when I made that crack about a Dean/dog fanfic, it was actually a joke. I didn't think you'd take it so seriously."

"Sam…"

"At the very least, I thought it would be Dean/Rumsfeld..."

"Real cute, coming from a guy who's most recent sexual experience consists of jerking off while fantasizing about a dead eighty-year-old librarian – I'd swear I heard you moan her name in your sleep last night… Eulalia, oh Eulalia!" Dean trilled in a falsetto voice, "Oh, classify my decimals and conjugate my verbs, Eulalia!"

"Jerk. I hear any suspicious noises from you two, I'm going for a bucket of cold water…"

"La la la la la, bitch, we're not listening, are we, Jimi?" The pup curled against Dean's chest and sighed contentedly. Dean smiled to himself, and closed his eyes. "Better than a hot water bottle."

Silence descended once more. Until...

The lightning flashed and the thunder roared immediately, rattling the windows as the storm moved overhead.

Sam wasn't immediately certain what happened next – after all, he was half asleep. There was a terrified "YAAAIIIPE!" from Jimi, an equally terrified "FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK..." from Dean, then his brother was suddenly sprinting out of the room, and... no, Sam didn't trust his eyes. He must've dreamed that bit...

He stuck his head out of the room, where his eyes met Bobby's. The old Hunter wore an expression of confusion.

"Correct me if I'm wrong here, Sam," he said casually, "Because I'm getting old, and I wouldn't be surprised if my eyes are playing tricks on me, but... did I just see Dean running for the bathroom with his shorts on fire?"

"I'm not sure," answered Sam cautiously, "I thought I was dreaming. We could be hallucinating. There was a lot of cheese in that pasta, and cheese before bedtime is meant to give you weird dreams. Or one of us could be the prisoner of a djinn."

"No, that aint it – seeing your brother performing Flight Of The Flaming Boxers doesn't fit anywhere into my ideal fantasy life, and if it fits into yours, I don't want to know." They both looked down the hall towards the bathroom. The sounds of the shower running, and a constant stream of obscene language, were faintly audible.

"Or we could actually have seen Dean running down the hall with his shorts on fire," concluded Sam.

"Hmmm," mused Bobby, "Well, it's certainly something you don't see every day." A small whimper behind Sam made them both turn. Jimi sat amongst the damp-yet-scorched bedclothes, which were steaming gently, managing to look shamefaced. Sam hurried over and scooped him up, making soothing shushing noises.

"Poor little guy," he murmured, "I guess he's really,_ really_ frightened of thunderstorms."

* * *

**Author's note:** Octo-Rabbit was the toy that Sam bought in his first traumatic encounter with the Crazy Dog People, in "Sonofabitch". Do go read it - it explains why Sam is terrified of pet warehouses. It's got Acting Class Sam and Naked Soapy Dean. Really. Oh, and remember, every time you leave a review, a hellhound puppy finds a new chew toy and yips adorably.


	3. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

"Jimi, what's wrong?" asked Sam anxiously, as the pup whined again. "Dean, I think you'd better pull over…"

"What?_ Again_?" Dean's voice dripped exasperation. "We only stopped 15 minutes ago!"

"It's been at least half an hour," corrected Sam. Dean glanced at Jimi. He really did look unhappy. With a grimace, he flicked the indicator, and pulled off the road.

"He's going to have to learn to do better than this," he told Sam, as Jimi sniffed the scrub at the edge of the tar, finding the perfect spot to take care of business (thankfully without starting any brush fires).

"Well, you remember how Jimi Senior started off with a weak bladder," Sam commiserated, "So he'll get the hang of, um, hanging on."

"He's worse than you were as a toddler," grizzled Dean. They had set out two days after The Unfortunate Incident Of The Ignition Of The Boxer Shorts – Dean had finally emerged from the bathroom, wrapped in a towel and the tattered shreds of his dignity, and announced "We will never speak of this again" – and their stop-start progress was grating on his nerves.

It should have been a short trip to an easy job, by Winchester standards: a few hours to the outskirts of Fergus Falls, to check out Bobby's low-fat poltergeist theory, but it rapidly became apparent that Jimi Junior had a lot to learn if he was going to be a Hunting dog. For a start, he would have to learn to be a happy traveller. A happy traveller, who could let his humans be happy travellers at the same time. And cross his legs.

First, he had barked excitedly when called into the Impala, his little legs scrambling to get him into the back seat. Then, he had barked indignantly about being in the back seat when his people were in the front. Then he had whined when told to be quiet. Then he cheered up, and bounced from one side of the car to the other. Then he had howled along mercilessly when Dean put on a Zeppelin tape. Finally, he curled up for a nap.

"It's funny," observed Sam, "You behaved almost exactly like that when that witch in Colorado turned you halfway into a dog."

"Oh, yeah, it's hilarious. Oh, my aching neurons." Dean's tone suggested that he was anything but amused by Jimi's karaoke skills. "I wonder what he's chasing in his dreams," he mused, watching Jimi twitch and make gentle 'arf' noises in his sleep, "Rabbits? Demons? Honky Ducks?"

"At least his singing isn't any worse than yours."

"Shut up, bitch."

"In fact," continued Sam, "The only thing he hasn't done just like you so far is…"

As he spoke, Dean gasped and started coughing. Sam looked at him in confusion, then sniffed, understanding dawning on his face. He smiled widely.

"Well, your emissions didn't smell like that…"

"Gah!" gasped Dean, wheezing and clutching at his throat, "Gaaaah! Of all the things he could've inherited from Jimi Senior, he had to get that?"

"Women will like it," opined Sam, smirking at his brother's discomfort. "And it reflects well on you, you know – only a man really comfortable with his masculinity could drive a muscle car that smells of lavender-scented hellhound farting. Who knows, it might even calm you down, make your driving less terrifying."

Dean made a rasping, gagging sound. "Oh, God, I'm dying here. Open your window, Samantha."

"What, and let this soothing scent out?" asked Sam in a surprised voice, stretching and sighing contentedly. "It's free aromatherapy, Dean. People pay money to get lavenderized, and we're getting it for free! Ah, I can feel it working on me already."

"You are this close to riding in the trunk," growled Dean. "With the dog. He can fumigate you both. Just because you have hair like a hippie doesn't mean you have to be so happy to smell like one!"

"Not listening, busy relaxing," smiled Sam. "Ommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm..."

Dean continued to hold forth on the topic of The Evilness Of Lavender until Jimi woke up again, whining and scratching at the seat. Sam correctly interpreted this as a request for a restroom stop.

Twenty minutes later, he wanted another break.

Then another one.

And another one.

After that, he lasted almost half an hour.

Dean had had enough. "Okay, ladies," he called to Sam, who was hovering over Jimi, "Assuming we want to get there before next week, time to bug out."

Sam hesitated. "I don't think he's finished," he suggested, "He's still sniffing around."

"He's peed, he's done," decided Dean, "Back in the car, both of you." A somewhat subdued Jimi followed Sam back to the Impala, and they set off again.

Jimi didn't join in singing along to Metallica. He sat quietly in the back seat. Too quietly.

"Are you okay, fella?" asked Dean, watching him in the mirror. "Sam, is he okay?"

"I think so," replied his brother, turning to check the pup. "Hang on... oh, that's so cute..."

"What?"

"I think he's got the hiccups."

The words were barely out of Sam's mouth when Dean's eyes bugged in horror, and he stomped on the brake.

"Dean, what the?..." began Sam. Dean was out of the car as soon as it stopped moving.

"Get him out! Get him out!" he yelled desperately, yanking open the door, reaching for Jimi, "It's not hiccups, it's..."

_Bloooooooooooorrk_

"Oh," said Sam faintly. "Um, that's... interesting..."

"Yes, Sam," said Dean in a pained tone, "It's riveting. It's utterly fascinating. Perhaps you'd care to take a couple of photos? To go with the next article you submit to _Infernal Creature Husbandry_? Or just text Bobby, and tell him that hellhound puke is... is..." words failed him as he surveyed the aftermath of Jimi's carsickness: Jimi, the seat, his shirt and his pants were splashed copiously with what could only be described as rainbow-streaked... stuff. "Don't just stand there, Francis, get us something to clean up with!"

"Oh, yeah, sorry," mumbled Sam, getting out and heading for the trunk. Dean sighed, and patted Jimi's head.

"You feel better now?" he asked the mournful-looking eyes, as Sam apparently tried to swab both of them down with an old towel without actually touching them.

"I don't think I'm doing much here except spreading it around," he said, dabbing gingerly at Dean's shirt. "God, this defies the laws of physics - this much puke shouldn't fit into a puppy that size!"

"Great. He's a TARDIS dog - his puke reserve is bigger on the inside than his body is on the outside. Another trait, incidentally, that you as a toddler also shared. We'll just have to find somewhere to stay, and get cleaned up there," sighed Dean, reassuring the pup he held. "But we'd better try to make sure Jimi doesn't get sick again. He'll probably feel better if he rides up front for a while." Smiling, he pressed the puke-smeared puppy onto his brother. "He can sit in your lap."

"Oh, gross!" exclaimed Sam, as Jimi brightened up and wriggled in his grip, spreading the mess across his shirt.

Dean laughed. "There, you got that whole tie-dye look happening. Now not only do you have hair like a hippie and smell like a hippie, you're dressed like one, too."

"Jerk."

**...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo...**

Several restroom breaks, two puke stops and a delavenderizing pause later, they finally arrived on the outskirts of Fergus Falls, much later than Dean had anticipated. They found a motel of their preferred crappy standard, and checked in. ("Attacked by Kindergarteners", Dean explained to the confused clerk who stared in disbelief at his colourfully stained clothes, "They're merciless with that poster paint. Don't ask. I'm not ready to talk about it. It's a very dark place for me. I can't go there just yet."). Jimi settled on his blanket, seemingly exhausted by the trip, while Sam headed for the shower and Dean cleaned up the back seat of his baby.

"Are you done, Samantha?" called Dean, as Sam emerged, still scrubbing at his head.

"It got into my _hair_," Sam complained, "I washed it four times, and I don't think I got it all out, how the hell did it get into my hair?"

"Never mind," commiserated Dean, "People will just think that you've had your highlights redone. Or you gave a unicorn a blow job." He threw the keys at Sam. "Now, be a good wife and go get me food while I clean up." Sam gave his brother a vicious shot of Bitchface #1™ (Dean, I Don't_ Believe_ You Just Did/Said/Ate/Punched/Shot/Had Sex With That!), and headed out.

Sam was back more quickly than he'd anticipated, finding a Chinese take-away just a couple of blocks away. When he returned, there was no sign of his brother or Jimi, but there were splashing noises from the bathroom.

He was about to call his brother's name, when he heard the off-key but cheerful singing start.

_Oinker Shtoinker, you're the one,_

_You make bathtime lots of fun,_

_Oinker Shtoinker, I'm awfully fond of you..._

It was accompanied by a waterlogged but distinctive _whungk-whungk_ noise.

_Oinker Shtoinker, joy of joys,_

_When I chomp you, you make noise,_

_Oinker Shtoinker, you're my very best friend, it's true..._

Sam put the food down, and bit hard on his bottom lip to stop from bursting out laughing.

_Every day when I make my way to the tubby..._

Clearing his throat carefully and battling to wipe the smile off his face, he tapped on the door.

"Um, Dean? What are you doing in there?"

"Just cleaning up after Jimi And His Amazing Technicolor Yawn," came the reply, accompanied by some more splashing.

"Everything okay, then?" pressed Sam.

"Everything is okey-dokey, fine and peachy," replied Dean. Sam hesitated.

"Um... if I push the door open, I'm not going to see anything that's going to put me in therapy for more than twelve months, am I?"

"Not doing anything I didn't do with you, Sammy," came the reply. "Raising a baby half-hellhound is turning out to be remarkably similar to raising a baby sasquatch. Who knew..."

His curiosity getting the better of him, Sam opened the door.

"_I find a little fella who's cute and... blue... and chubby..."_

Dean sat in the tub in his boxers with Jimi between his knees. The pup chewed vigorously on his blue toy pig, apparently distracted from being washed by the satisfying if somewhat gurgling _whungk-whungk_ noises it made. Sam glared suspiciously at Dean.

"Dean, you aren't washing him with my shampoo, are you?"

"No, Sam," said Dean emphatically, "Absolutely not."

"Because human shampoo is unsuitable for puppies," continued Sam, "They have sensitive skin that needs a mild, soap-free wash, and..."

"I'm aware of that, Sam. Besides which, after that time I washed Jimi Senior, you made it clear that I was never to use your shampoo for dog-washing – or anything else - ever again. And I have respected your wishes."

"Uh, okay, then," said Sam, still somewhat nonplussed by the sight of his big brother sitting calmly in the tub in his shorts, looking up at him seriously. "Anyway, food's here."

"We'll be right out," said Dean, standing up. "Throw me a towel, will you? Oh, and if you try to take a photo of me like this, this time I will personally tear your arm off and stuff it up your ass, okay?"

"Fine, fine," muttered Sam, rolling his eyes and shutting the door.

Dean lifted Jimi out, and started towelling him off. "That went easier than I'd expected," he told the pup, who was still chewing enthusiastically at his toy pig, "But I'm warning you now, we'd better make sure we're not here when Sam finds out how much we used of his sissy shower gel."

* * *

If you want to see a Rottie puppy with the hiccups, go to YouTube (.com/watch?v=P-8Ok-h2Ccc) or search with 'Rottweiler puppy with hiccups'. But be warned - your head might asplode from the cyoot!

_Fanfic reviews, you're so great,_  
_You inspire me to update,_  
_Fanfic reviews, I'm awfully fond of you,_

_Fanfic reviews make my day,_  
_Fanfic reviews, I go "Yay!"_  
_Fanfic reviews , oh, write me another one, do._


	4. Chapter 3

Apparently, there are still some silly people reading, so we'd better continue the silliness. It's time to mention pie...

**

* * *

**

**Chapter 3**

"You did that, too, after the dog half-transformation in Colorado," commented Sam, eyeing his older brother, "But at least you had the excuse of being a dog at the time."

Dean sat in shotgun, the window partly rolled down, his nose pressed to the opening, flaring his nostrils, a happy smile on his face. Jimi sat in his lap, in pretty much the same posture. "I smell baking, Sammy," he reported happily, "We're homing in on baking!"

"Either of you starts drooling, and you will be travelling in the trunk," Sam added, slowing as he peered at house numbers. "Ah, here it is." Neither Dean nor Jimi moved, apparently hypnotised by the smell of pastry on the air. "Dean? Earth to Dean, Earth to Dean, shut down Pie Detector and initiate Upstairs Brain ignition sequence, do you copy?"

"Buzzkill," grumped Dean, snapping Jimi's leash onto his collar and opening the door.

Sam knocked on the front door of the tidy house, and it was answered by a pleasant middle-aged lady wearing an apron. "Mrs Stewart?" he asked.

"You must be Bobby's nephews," she smiled, "And it's Maisie, please. He warned me I'd hear the car before I saw you." She looked down. "And who's this?"

"This is Jimi," replied Dean, as Jimi duly turned on the I-Will-Make-You-Go-Awwww big brown eyes. "He's learning to, er, work with us."

"He's adorable!" cooed Maisie, bending to pat the pup. "You boys come on in."

She showed them inside. "So, Maisie," began Sam, as Jimi sniffed and growled suspiciously at a particularly threatening-looking pot plant, "Bobby tells us you have a problem in your house. Can you tell us about it?"

She sighed sadly. "It's probably easiest if I just show you." They followed her into the kitchen where she made coffee, and, with a despondent expression, put down a plate of small cherry pastries. Sam sat looking expectantly at Maisie.

"So, Maisie," he prompted again. She pushed the plate of pastries towards them. Sam politely picked one up and bit into it, while Dean shoved his into his mouth with inarticulate noises of delight.

"Very nice," commented Sam politely, privately wondering how Dean stayed on speaking terms with his major arteries as his older brother chomped into a second pastry. He became aware that Maisie was watching him. "Er, yes, that tasted… very nice," he repeated, not sure what was expected. "Um… perhaps you can tell us more about your problem…"

"That is the problem!" she burst out, indicating the plate. Sam stared at it, wondering what he was missing.

"Er," he responded, mind racing. He'd never heard of a poltergeist that undertook violent acts of terrifying bakery after dark, but in their line of work, anything was possible. "Could you be a little more… specific?"

Maisie eyed him dubiously, with an expression that put him in mind of a special school teacher who has just discovered that the latest _idiot savant_ sent to her was lacking the _savant_ bit. He turned a desperate smile to Dean, the older brother who had rescued him from all manner of human and supernatural peril. _Help help help baby brother in distress!_ he thought furiously, but Dean continued to chew slowly, staring thoughtfully at the pastry he was holding.

"Um..." he managed, trying very hard not to squirm under Maisie's disappointed glare – he had spent his years of education being beamed at with approval for his intellect, damn it! – when Dean finally came to his rescue.

"This..." he said slowly, "Is not actually a tart, is it?"

Maisie sighed in relief and smiled at Dean (_Oh great_, thought Sam, _her brightest student recites pi to the one hundredth decimal place, special class teacher's pet_...) as he continued, "This is... was supposed to be... a turnover, wasn't it?"

Maisie beamed at Dean (..._ and now he's told her what day of the week it will be on February 15__th__, 2318. Brown-noser..._) "One thing I do well, it's puff pastry," she explained. "I've won prizes at the Minnesota State Fair every year for my pastries for the last, oh, dozen years or so. And now, this..." she gazed despondently at the plate. "When I can't get pastry to work, something is going very, weirdly, wrong," she stated firmly. "It's like... like all those years ago, when Bobby came and dealt with Old Man Phillips – there's something _wrong_."

"Okay, so, when did you notice that your pastries weren't behaving themselves?" asked Dean seriously, frowning at the baked-item-of-indeterminate-nomenclature and prodding at a piece of the pastry before taking another thoughtful bite. Sam shot him a pained expression – _You cannot possibly be taking this seriously..._

"Two weeks ago, when I made up a batch for a Fuckers meeting..."

Dean choked on his mouthful, and Sam pounded him between the shoulder blades until the errant piece of crust was dislodged. The Winchesters stared open-mouthed at Maisie.

"Er, funny acoustics in here," remarked Sam, battling to regain his composure, "I thought you said something, er, quite, er..."

Maisie seemed to realize what she'd said, and slapped a hand over her mouth. "Oh, I'm sorry boys," she apologised, "I should've explained that. The Fergus Falls Unaffiliated Cookery & Craft Collective. The F-F-U-C-C-C. We call ourselves the, well..."

"Fuckers?" supplied Dean helpfully.

"Yes," Maisie grinned. "It's a joke. We're a group of ladies who meet up every fortnight or so, to compare notes on recipes, and craft matters – lots of us fine-tune our State Fair recipes by getting critiques at our gatherings. It's an excellent excuse for a get-together to chat, have the odd tipple, and complain bitterly about our husbands, or about how there aren't any decent men in the right age demographic available. Some members complain about both." Her expression was positively mischievous. "We didn't actually realise what the acronym looked like until we wrote it down – we laughed so hard! We decided to keep it, and now we use it as much as possible to freak out our husbands, children and most of all our grand-children. You should see them wince when Grandma says "I'm meeting the other Fuckers tonight." Their little eyes nearly pop out of their heads." She turned back to Sam. "Frankly, I didn't think anyone related to Bobby would be too precious about a wee bit of language. That old fox can swear a blue streak and not repeat himself in five minutes."

"Aint that the truth..." muttered Sam.

"So, you made up a batch, for the Fuckers," said Dean, apparently enjoying having an excuse to use the word in general conversation, "And it all went south. What exactly happened with that batch?"

Sam listened in growing disbelief as Maisie and Dean talked about possible causes for the failure of a reliable pastry recipe, Dean sounding as if he was in FBI impersonation mode. "Did anything change? Was the butter cold enough? Same brand of flour? Have you had any problems with your central heating? Do you render your own lard? What about your rolling pin, have you changed that? Washed your kitchen bench down with something?" Maisie gave a negative answer to each possible problem he raised. "Something strange is going on," she repeated. "Something is... interfering with my baking."

Suddenly, there was a growling noise from floor level. The brothers peered under the table: Jimi had flopped at Dean's feet and dozed off when they entered the kitchen. He was now awake, and glaring suspiciously at the piece of pastry crust that Dean had coughed up. He growled again, then barked sharply at the errant morsel.

"Okay, now that is strange," conceded Sam. Jimi had proven to be the only being he had ever seen convince Dean to share pie – the pup shared his older brother's taste for desserts, and Dean couldn't say no to Sam's puppy-dog eyes, let alone a pair on an actual puppy-dog – and now said puppy-dog was not just turning his nose up at a piece of pastry, he was acting as if it was threatening.

"Maybe we should take a look around your kitchen, and the rest of the house," Dean said to Maisie, clearly following Sam's train of thought. "If there is something, it might be safer if you aren't in here with us, in case we provoke it." He looked around. "It's probably best that you go outside, just in case."

"I can wait on the porch, I guess," she said, "I'll just get my knitting."

"We'll call you when we're done," Sam assured her. "If you hear any strange noises, don't come in looking for us, okay?"

Maisie left them to it. They started in the kitchen, then moved on to the rest of the house, looking for anything that might give some information about what was happening. Dean encouraged Jimi to sniff around.

Sam remained less than convinced that there was a paranormal problem. "I mean, pastry?" he asked Dean incredulously, "She has a problem with a pastry recipe, and she calls Bobby for help? And he actually sends us? Maybe he is developing Alzheimers. I'm going to kill him. Wouldn't Martha Stewart be of more help?"

"Baked goods is serious business, Sam," replied Dean, "If there's the slightest chance that something is messing with baked goods, then I will fight to the death to defend the pastries of the world from malevolent paranormal attack. We owe it to humanity, Sam..."

He stopped short as Jimi suddenly halted by a cupboard under the stairs, and stood, hackles raised, glaring at it, growling a growl that seemed too deep and menacing to be coming out of such a small puppy. Coal-red glowing highlights arced across his brown eyes as his mouth drew into a snarl.

The Winchesters drew their guns, and silently took up positions on either side of the cupboard. Pulling Jimi out of the way, Dean reached carefully for the handle, and yanked it open...

Inside the cupboard sat the biggest, ugliest, most bored-looking cat either of them had ever seen. It looked disdainfully at them, and yawned.

Jimi took one look, cried "YAIPE!" and turned, ducking between Dean's feet and heading at top speed back through the kitchen, pulling the leash out of Dean's hand.

"Jimi!" called Dean, as they scrambled after the pup, who headed for the back door at full tilt. "Jimi, stop! You'll hurt yourself..."

The terrified pup hit the door, and... kept going...

The Winchesters stood in the kitchen, blinking.

"Oh," said Sam, as Dean checked the door.

"There isn't actually any, um, cat flap here," he noted, running his hand over solid wood.

"Bobby never mentioned him doing that," remarked Sam.

"Maybe it's another thing he's inherited from his daddy, but he only does when he's frightened," theorized Dean.

"Ah," said Sam. "Like the alien blood pee thing."

"Yeah, like the alien blood pee thing."

"And being scared of thunderstorms."

"Yeah, we know he's scared of thunderstorms."

"And setting things on fire when he pees during a thunderstorm..."

"Don't make me kill you, Samantha," Dean muttered, opening the back door. Jimi sat huddled on the back step, giving Dean a high-beam shot of big brown eyes. "You silly boy," he sighed, gathering up the pup, "You're half-hellhound, how the hell can you be scared of cats?"

"It's an extremely ugly cat," Sam pointed out, "And there is a theory that cats are practically demonic."

They went back inside and finished their search, turning up nothing. Sam went to tell Maisie about their lack of immediate progress.

"We need to do some more work on this," he told her, "Bobby thought it might be a low-powered poltergeist, but we don't want to go knocking holes in your walls if we don't have to."

"Well, it's not life-threatening," she sighed, "But it will be disappointing not to have my pastries up to scratch for the next Fucker meeting." They promised to do some digging, and made their goodbyes, Maisie pressing a bag of too-flat-to-be-turnovers onto Dean.

Back in the Impala, Sam asked "Since when are you a member of the Pastry Police, anyway? Render her own lard? Changed her rolling pin? Whatever brain disease Bobby clearly has, I'm starting to wonder if it's contagious."

"I like to think of myself as a student of pie," Dean said thoughtfully, "An informed appreciator of pie. It's not just a dessert, Sammy, it's a mental state, it's a philosophy, it's a way of life."

Sam rolled his eyes. "Yeah, well so is drinking your own urine. Only you could talk about eating pie as some sort of religious observance..."

"I warn you, unbeliever, the gods of pie are not lightly mocked!" threatened Dean. "You're probably going to be crushed to death by a truckload of Brussels sprouts during Holy Pie Week for that little bit of heresy."

"So, what do you think?" asked Sam.

"Well, I think the cherry filling was just fine - it seems to be a problem with the layering in the pastry, which is why I asked about..."

"No!" snapped Sam, "Since you and Maisie are both convinced that it's something supernatural, do you have any ideas about what's causing the problem?"

"None at all," Dean admitted cheerfully, "But look on the bright side, we get to do research! You can hit the library, do your Laptop Dancing, and I can hit the bakeries and diners, to check for any other pie-related problems in the area."

Sam sighed, but brightened up a bit at an excuse to go delving into the area's historical records. "There are some really old buildings here, including Maisie's house," he said hopefully, "Something might turn up there."

"Attaboy," encouraged Dean, "We'll save you from the evil clutches of salad yet. Won't we Jimi?"

"Rumph," went the pup from the back seat.

"Sounds like more fun that Puritanism, at least," muttered Sam. "Oh, hey, can we stop? I gotta get more shower gel. I only noticed today I'm running out."

* * *

**TBC** - because we can't leave it at that. Oh, firemooncat: I don't know why Dean hates the smell of lavender so much. Maybe he was traumatised by a ghastly babysitter at an impressionable age, and elderly lady who doused herself in lavender water. Or there was a haunted lavender bush. If anybody has any theories about Dean's lavender aversion, feel free to leave it in a review - maybe we can work a traumatic flashback into the story... reviews make pastry rise and stop your cookies crumbling!


	5. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

Sam picked up his laptop, and stepped out of the library. It had been an interesting, if not particularly helpful, exercise. Fergus Falls had its fair share of secrets, closet-bound skeletons and salacious scandals, if you knew how to fit the pieces of information together, but nothing that suggested any basis for a paranormal explanation for collapsing pastry. He was still not completely convinced that there _was_ a paranormal explanation – his current preferred theory was that Bobby had wanted them out from under his feet for a while, and was prepared to indulge in a little creativity with the truth to get them on the road.

In the foyer, he paused and made sure the librarian wasn't looking. Seeing that he was unobserved, he uncapped his red pen, and corrected the Latin on the poster announcing the approach of Philosophy Week. With the satisfaction of a public service well done, he walked outside and headed for the park across the street.

His brother was sitting on a bench, with Jimi on his leash, speaking to a woman in running gear, looking to the untrained observer like a man taking a puppy for a walk. But Sam was no untrained observer; over many years, he'd had opportunity to study Dean in his natural habitat, and he recognised mating display as competently as the most ardent watchers of whales' breachings, gorillas' chest-beatings or baboons' bright-red-bottom-showings.

As he waited for the crossing lights to change, he had a sudden mental image of a distinguished naturalist crouched in the bushes, whispering into a microphone. _"We see now the Shorter-Legged Winchester in his element,"_ began the earnest voice in his imagination, _"Having identified a potential partner, the male uses his canine companion to attract her interest..."_ the woman reached down to pat Jimi, who sat up and radiated brain-exploding cuteness in the megawatt range_. "...having gained her attention, he begins his virility display: the casual slouch, the cocked eyebrow, the self-assured smirk, the slightly-suggestive remark, and, finally, the deal clincher: he deploys The Killer Smile..."_ The young lady flicked her ponytail back, laughing with Dean, reaching for her phone. _"...having decided that he has copulation potential, she engages in the ritual of Proffering The Phone Number..."_

Sam crossed the road just as Dean waved goodbye to his probable latest conquest _("...they will meet up again in the evening. Under cover of darkness, the male will leave the den, and seek out the company of the female awaiting him, while the Longer-Crested Bitchfaced Winchester undertakes further research..."_) then grinned at his brother.

"He's just like his daddy," he informed Sam, reaching down to pat Jimi, "Total chick magnet. While you've been getting your panties damp in the archives, the J-Man has been working his mojo. Not that I need any help, but I've got three phone numbers in the last hour..."

"We're never at home to Mr Boasty, Dean," grumped Sam, rolling his eyes. Jimi yipped a greeting, jumping up against his knees to solicit some more pats.

"Ooooh, somebody had a bad day at beauty school," observed Dean. "So, either you're on your man-period, or you've drawn a complete blank at the library. Pat the puppy, it'll make you feel better."

"Regarding the Case Of The Disastrously Unpuffed Pastry, yeah," confirmed Sam, scratching Jimi's ears and wondering why the anticipation of female company always made his brother so damned cheerfully annoying. Maybe it was something to do with shunting blood away from the Upstairs Brain... "How did your survey of the area's bakeries go?"

"Depends on how you look at it," said Dean thoughtfully, "It's been a gruelling day, but with my usual awesomeness I manned up and got the job done. On the one hand, I didn't identify any places having trouble with their baking. On the other hand," he patted his stomach and smiled contentedly, "I won't need to refuel for a while."

"So, nothing to confirm a poltergeist, but no other leads. So, where to from here?" asked Sam.

"We do have a lead," Dean told him, "Seeing as I've actually been working hard out here while you were whacking off in the stacks. I had a call from Maisie. She's had calls from some of her fellow Fuckers. Guess what's happened to them?"

"They've had reliable recipes mysteriously fail?" guessed Sam.

"Ding ding! Give the boy a collapsed pastry. I've been giving my dialling hand a pounding out here, giving myself RSI..."

"Any tendonitis in your right wrist is certainly due to pounding something," agreed Sam.

"We're not at home to Mr Prudey, Sam. Sabine has had a strudel that collapsed, Fiona's Angel Food Cake has come out looking more like an Angel Smiting Target Practice Cake, and something terrible has happened to Angela's cookies."

"What happened to the cookies?" asked Sam curiously.

"She wouldn't say. Said she was too upset to discuss it. But if you think it's important, you can do Caring And Compassionate and ask her yourself – tomorrow, we have been invited to Meet The Fuckers!" Dean smiled a smile that clearly anticipated ingestion of unhealthy amounts of refined carbohydrate and saturated fat, and possibly multiple opportunities to say the word 'fuckers' out loud in company.

"We can probably scotch the poltergeist theory, then," mused Sam. "Where are they meeting?"

"At Sabine's place – she of the tragically crumbled strudel. Oh, and I checked – she doesn't have a cat, so Jimi should be, er, less inclined to mess with the fabric of the space-time continuum."

Sam nodded. "Okay. So, Mr Boasty, I'm guessing you don't want me to wait up tonight?"

Dean smirked back. "You'll have Jimi for company. Wait til he's asleep before you jerk off."

"Hey, I'll have a few hours of quiet to work on that translation for Bobby."

Dean sighed. "And here I was hoping that you'd at least chatted up the librarian. I should've sent Jimi in with you, Mr Prudey – you need his chick magnet talents so much more than I do."

**...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo...**

The next day, Sam was surprised to see just how easily Dean enjoyed the company of the Ladies Of A Certain Age. It was a convivial gathering, with bottles of something bubbly opened early. The group of about a dozen members of the FFUCCC fussed over Jimi, who worked the Adorable Puppy With Big Brown Eyes angle to the point where his feet barely touched the floor, because he was constantly in someone's lap. _Man-whores_, Sam thought, _the pair of them..._

Dean was laying on the charm with a shovel; Maisie touted his informed critique of her failed pastries, and several Fuckers pressed their culinary disasters upon him, even Angela, who was clearly crushed by the implosion of her cookies. He moved from one plate to the next, a serious expression on his face, tasting, prodding, frowning and sniffing at the offered morsels, asking questions that made Sam wonder just how many episodes of The Martha Stewart Show his big brother had sat through (clearly, more than was healthy).

The ladies were even more impressed by Jimi's ability to tell the difference between the affected bakings (which were growled at suspiciously) and the as-yet unaffected ones (which were quickly snapped up).

"So, what is Robert Singer doing with himself these days?" asked a tall brunette matriarch who was embroidering an intricate celtic knotwork design, apparently without looking at her work. "Still coming to the assistance of damsels in distress?"

"Don't think we don't know that your 'distress' was self-inflicted, Mary," said Maisie, emerging from the kitchen with another bottle, "You stabbed your own tyre with your nail file so he'd offer to change it for you!"

"Maybe – but it worked!" announced the brunette archly, to the whoops of laughter from the other women. "But seriously, did he remarry? That terrible business with his wife. So very sad..."

"Er, no," replied Sam, suddenly aware that several pairs of ears were tuning in to his answer. "He's, um, still batching it."

"Some of you others know Bobby, then?" asked Dean, his innocent expression indicating to Sam that he was poised to memorize any potential blackmail material.

"Not in the biblical sense," remarked a grey-haired matron named Emma casually, waving her glass for a refill.

"Not for lack of trying by some, though..." commented Angela Of The Crumbled Cookies, with a leer that Sam would be uncomfortable seeing on his brother's face, let alone a lady who was old enough to be his mother. That drew more shrieks of laughter from the gathering.

"Fine figure of a man, as I recall," recounted a woman who had introduced herself as Inga, as several other Fuckers nodded in agreement, "He came to town to help when was that terrible business with Old Man Phillips..."

"Ah, that would be the Chicken-Squashing Onion-Bag Strangler," said Sam, relieved to be on more familiar ground. "I read about that in the library archives..."

"A good dancer, too..." added Fiona, a plump woman who looked like a cross between Nancy Reagan and Jabba the Hutt. "Very nice legs." She paused in her needlework, and rolled an empty cotton reel across the floor for Jimi to chase. He yapped and pounced on it, eliciting a chorus of "Awwwwws". "Of course, he was late for our date, because _somebody_ needed help changing her sabotaged tyre..." more laughter ensued.

"The circumstances were quite sad, in a way..." continued Sam, trying desperately to make polite conversation. Damn it, he could_ hear_ Dean grinning at him. Listening to This Sort Of Thing from his older brother was bad enough; hearing it from these mature ladies was... creepy.

"I was seething with envy, dear, _seething_, I tell you," sighed Mary dramatically. "He was so darned efficient, he was done and gone before I had a chance to make up some story about you being engaged to a member of the Mafia... thanks, Maisie, just a drop more for me."

"...Although there's quite an amusing backstory to why he had a morbid fear of poultry..." Sam gave up as it became clear that the tragic circumstances that had led Seth Phillips to his death some thirty years earlier, and his ghost's admittedly rather creative post-mortem murders, could not compete with the cuteness of Jimi's antics or the shapeliness of Bobby's legs.

"Do you remember when Mrs Paulson threw him out of the library for correcting the Japanese on the posters for Victory In The Pacific Week?" laughed archetypal grandmother Ania, scooting Jimi's cotton reel across the floor again. "She was so angry, I had to hide him in the stacks for half an hour!"

"Hide him in the stacks?" repeated Fiona. "If the lipstick on his collar was anything to go by, you tried to do more than just hide him, my girl..." more hoots of laughter followed.

"Perhaps we should have a look in your kitchen, Sabine," said Sam, wondering if it might be worth feigning some sort of seizure in order to escape from hearing any more lewd comments about Bobby's younger years.

"What? Come on, Sam, this is just starting to get interesting," protested Dean.

"No, no, I insist," Sam pressed, "We're here to help these ladies work out what's sabotaging their baking. Duty calls."

Coming perilously close to pulling a bitchface, Dean called Jimi, who came trotting over carrying his cotton reel. "We'll just take a look in your kitchen, Sabine," he said, smiling winningly, "Then we'll be back for the details on how Bobby got that lipstick on his shirt."

Sam had a double-strength Bitchface #1™ aimed at Dean as they shut the kitchen door on the laughter behind them. "What the hell are you doing?"

"Making friendly conversation while I check out the baked goods," replied Dean, starting to check cupboards and encouraging Jimi to sniff around.

"Soliciting the gory details of what Bobby got up to when he was Hunting?" demanded Sam. "How is that relevant?"

"He does seem to have made quite an impression," mused Dean. "Correcting posters, then getting molested up in the library stacks. There's hope for you yet."

"Well, stop it!" Sam hissed at him, "These ladies are mothers! Grandmothers! You're... encouraging them!"

"What's wrong with that?" asked Dean defensively. "What, just because they're over thirty, they're not allowed to think lecherous thoughts? The day will come, Sammy, when I, for one, will be extremely grateful for the existence of lecherous older women. You, probably not so much – once you're over thirty-five, you'll probably retire to a bookshop and keep too many cats, and not even bother to jerk off anymore. You'll be an honorary Crazy Cat Woman."

"Could we possibly try to concentrate on the job, since you're so certain there's something not entirely natural going on here?" asked Sam through gritted teeth. "We can rule out the poltergeist. So, what?"

"Not sure yet, Sam," replied Dean, "But I suspect there will need to be more pastry tasting. It's a dirty job, but someone has to do it... "

He was cut off as Jimi, still playing with his empty cotton reel, batted it with a paw, causing it to roll underneath the oven. He scrabbled briefly at the gap, then growled, and barked.

"Hang on Jimi," said Sam, bending down to retrieve the cotton reel. However, as soon as it was extracted, Jimi ignored it, and continued to growl and scratch at the small space.

"What is it, fella?" Dean encouraged, kneeling down next to Sam to peer under the oven. He pulled a small flashlight from a pocket and turned the beam into the narrow gap.

"I think there's something there," Sam frowned, squinting into the dark. He used a pen to poke at the indistinct shape, wiggling in forward until he could get hold of it.

It was a hex bag.

"Oh, fuck," groaned Dean, "I hate fucking witches."

"So don't have sex with them."

"Bitch."

"Jerk."

* * *

*cue the sound of English voice whispering into microphone*

_And now, having completed the most recent chapter, the Chocolate-Eating Southern FanFic Writer will post her latest offering, then retire to her den. However, she will return to this place every day to check for reviews, in between foraging for chocolate and picking up dog toys. Biologists have established a clear connection between reviews and further updates. The arrival of new reviews can be detected by the female's idiot grin, and small happy cries of "yaaay!"_


	6. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

"Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuckity fuckity fuck," swore Dean under his breath. Jimi looked up, and put a reassuring paw on his knee.

"Expressed succinctly, if somewhat inarticulately," commented Sam, poking at the small piece of extremely vexing evidence. It was stained and oily, covered in fluff, grease, and crumbs, as might befall any item that spent any length of time wedged under a stove in a busy kitchen.

"What do you think then, Brain?" asked Dean.

"I think a mouse might have used it as a maternity ward, Pinky," Sam answered, screwing up his nose.

"No, I mean, what sort of mojo are we dealing with?" his brother persisted.

"Actually, I think a mouse might've used it as a toilet." Sam found himself wishing he'd brought a pair of gloves.

"Yeah, yeah, it stinks, I get that, but what's in it?"

"In fact, I think that several mice might have been using it as a public convenience," Sam continued. "Damn it, no amount of shower gel is going to get this smell off me..." _Yeah, a pair of gloves, and some hand sanitizer..._

"Sam! Focus!" snapped Dean, waving a hand in front of Sam. "This from the man who can sit calmly in an enclosed space awash with the stench of lavender. What are we up against here?" Sam tipped the bag out onto the kitchen bench, the contents dumping out into a tumbled heap. Dean held his breath; they'd seen some nasty stuff in hex bags, and his skin was already crawling at the thought that a witch was involved in the cases of culinary chaos. His face blanched.

"Oh, God," he croaked, looking at the contents, "That's rabbit crap. There's rabbit crap in there!"

"Um, no," said Sam, gingerly prodding at the putative poop with a pen, "I think they're sultanas."

Dean clapped his hands over his eyes. "I don't believe you. Look, that's clearly a gangrenous eyeball..."

"Maybe not – more like a salted olive," mused Sam, inspecting the offending orb.

Dean peeked through his fingers. "I don't want to know what part of a baby that bone came from," he squeaked.

"Okay then," said Sam, "I'll just tell you that I'm pretty sure it's a plastic icing nail."

Dean eyed him dubiously. "And the small-yet-somehow-terrifying conical instrument of torture?"

"Tip for an icing bag," theorized Sam. "It's harmless. Unless you're diabetic, I guess."

"Harmless? _Harmless_? It's got_ teeth_, Sam, I can see _teeth_, I don't want to _know_ where the Spanish Inquisition shoved things like that..." Dean shuddered.

"I think it's for making icing flowers," Sam clarified, contemplating the small metal cone which did, admittedly, have fairly scary looking teeth. "With the icing nail. I'm surprised you don't recognise it, with as many episodes of Martha Stewart as you must've sat through..."

"Okay, smartass, how about the silver shot, huh? Huh?" demanded Dean, "What sort of fugly is she binding with silver?"

"Since they appear in fact to be cachous, probably the only thing you could coerce with them would be a gluten-intolerant chupacabra," mused Sam.

Dean frowned, and warily moved closer to the bench. "I thought cashews were nuts," he said.

"Cashews are nuts," agreed Sam, poking at the strange ingredients again, "Cachous are little shiny balls of candy for decorating cakes." He looked up at Dean. "How does the Life Student Of Pie not know this?"

"Pie does not need frivolous decoration," sniffed Dean, a little haughtily, "Pie stands on its own merits. Oh, gross," he screwed up his nose, "You were right about the mice, look, there's mouse crap mixed in through it."

"That's not mouse crap," corrected Sam, "It's seed pods from lavender flowers."

Dean snarled. "Right," he said, "We are dealing with a vicious bitch who is going around lavenderizing the Fuckers. We have to stop this, Sammy, before any more innocent people are, are,_ polluted_ with the vile stuff!" He paused. "So, who's the witch?"

"It could well be one of the Fuckers," answered Sam, "They meet regularly at each other's houses, and visit each other all the time. I'll bet we'd find these in the others' kitchens. The question is, why?" He poked thoughtfully at the bag again. "Why would one of them go sabotaging the cookery of the others?"

"Why? _Why?_ Because waging lavender against someone is an evil thing to do, and witches do evil things," stated Dean, waving his arms around. "What other reason would a witch need to deploy a Weapon of Mass Infusion?"

"Identifying a motive might help us identify the witch," countered Sam, "Or do you suggest that we just go back in there, guns blazing, and shoot everyone to make sure?"

Dean growled something that was probably obscene. Sam sighed – the thoughts that there was a witch a couple of rooms away, AND that he'd probably eaten something baked by the witch, AND that there was no straightforward way to march in and blow the witch's head off, AND worst of all said witch clearly had a supply of lavender and wasn't afraid to use it was making Dean cranky. Then something caught his eye.

"Hey, give me the flashlight," he said, turning the beam on the bag, "I think I can see..."

The fabric of the bag was dark and stained, but under the torch beam, faint stitching showed up. Before it had succumbed to the ravages of the kitchen floor, it had been embroidered with an intricate design of interwoven spirals. Sam looked up.

"Mary was doing embroidery like this," he recalled, "Celtic knotwork. Very intricate. Did she have anything for you to taste tonight?"

Dean thought for a moment. "No," he said slowly, "She didn't. In fact, she was the only one who didn't have a failed recipe for me."

Sam replayed the discussion of Bobby's desirable attributes, wincing. "She did say that she was thwarted in an attempt to, er, become, um, more intimately acquainted with Bobby," he pointed out. "She tried to sabotage his date with Fiona, and she did say that she was envious. Could she have been carrying that resentment for, what, thirty years?"

"Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned," said Dean, his face brightening. "Well done, Sammy! Can I go gank her now?"

"No!" Sam hissed at him with Bitchface #7™ (You Can Be Impossibly Unreasonable, Dean, You Know That?). "Look, I think what we need to do here is think about... proportionate force."

"What? 'Proportionate force'? What the hell is with that?" queried Dean. "When did you start talking like a Sensitive New Age police force reform fanatic? Look, it's simple. We are Hunters. She is a witch. Hunters gank witches. It's the natural order of things. Birds fly. Fish swim. The sun rises in the east. Bobby wears a hat. Angels not named Castiel are dicks. I eat pie and enjoy the company of frisky women. You read too much and jerk off too little. Hunters – gank – witches. It's the way of the world."

"There could be a problem with that, seeing as she's in a sitting room with several friends, who might take exception to you filling their friend with hot lead," explained Sam.

"Oh, you're totally determined to ruin my evening," grumped Dean. "Cas was right. You are an ass-butt. So, what do you suggest we do, Mr Sensitivity Training?"

"Look, we're here to stop the failure of the Fuckers' baking," pointed out Sam. "Considering that so far all she's done is sabotage desserts, I say, we take the bag, confront her with the evidence, and let peer group pressure do the rest."

"Okay, okay," sighed Dean, "We do it your way. But if she even looks like she's going for her lavender to do anything worse, and I don't want to trivialize the seriousness of sabotaging desserts, she so much as twitches suspiciously, I reserve the right to gank her. Or set Jimi on her. He could use the practice." At the sound of his name, the pup jumped up against the cupboard, nose twitching and ears pricked, radiating cute Man's Best Friendness.

"Maybe we can let him have a go at tracking it back to her," suggested Sam, scooping the contents back into the hex bag, "Just let him sniff at it, and see what he does. He did find the bag. If he could detect pastry that had been paranormally affected, maybe he can connect a witch to her own handiwork."

"What do you think, J-Man?" Dean bent down and scratched Jimi's ears. Sam handed him the bag, and Dean showed it to Jimi. "Who's is this, fella?" he asked, as the pup sniffed and growled at the bag, "Where did it come from? Show me! Show me!" With a final growl, Jimi turned, and ran for the door, barking. Dean opened it, and they followed him as he galumphed back to the sitting room.

Once there, he sat in front of Mary.

He rather spoiled his dramatic entrance by tripping over his own feet first.

"Grrrrrrrrrrrr," he went.

This provoked the unfortunate reaction of a chorus of "Awwwwwww"s from the Fuckers.

Dean's face fell. "Er, I'm sure he'll be more imposing when he's grown up a bit," whispered Sam.

"Oh, he's just adorable," said Mary, smiling indulgently, not pausing in her embroidery.

"Did you find anything in my kitchen?" asked Sabine, giving her glass a generous refill.

"Actually, yes," said Dean, not taking his eyes off Mary. "We found... this." He tossed the bag down in front of her. "Recognize the embroidery, Mary?" he smirked triumphantly.

Mary looked non-plussed for a moment, then she adjusted her glasses on her nose and peered at the bag. "Yes," she said after a moment, "Yes, that's one of mine."

"Are you sure?" asked Fiona, "They all look much the same after they've kicked around for a little while."

"Oh, I'm sure," said Mary, smiling, "You make the best shortbread in the galaxy, Fiona, but your knotwork embroidery, well, let's just say it's not exactly your forte."

The other Fuckers burst out into peals of laughter. "Er," stammered Dean, "This is... you admit that this is yours?" He shot a bewildered look at Sam, seeing a similar expression on his younger brother's face. _Dude, WTF?_

"Oh, it's definitely mine," reiterated Mary. "We all have our talents – embroidering knotwork is mine."

"You're never going to let me forget, are you?" smiled Fiona. When the Winchesters stared at her in confusion, she elaborated. "Oh, Mary's right. I just never could get the hang of it, though God knows I tried. There was this one pattern I was trying to do, it was supposed to be a cushion cover, and I thought I had the hang of it, and then, when I'd finished, Inga pointed out that if you turned it upside down, well, let's just say it looked less like Celtic knotwork, and more like an illustration out of the Karma Sutra..."

"The Karma Sutra?" echoed Sabine incredulously. "It wasn't nearly that subtle, my girl." The Fuckers erupted into fresh gales of laughter. The Winchesters stared at each other in bemusement. _No, really, WTF?_

"Think less tantric eroticism, more Hustler Centrefold," added Emma matter-of-factly. The laughter redoubled.

"Let's face it, Fiona," sighed Maisie, gesturing expansively with her glass, "Just possessing that thing could've gotten you arrested in several states."

"Whatever became of the Porn Pillow, anyway?" asked Ania.

"I gave it to my son's wife," explained Fiona.

"Oh, my God," breathed Angela, "Isn't she...?"

"Yes," grinned Fiona, "She's the gynaecologist." She pulled out her phone and handed it to the Winchesters. "I have a picture of it here, somewhere..."

_It's like a train crash_, thought Dean, his hands taking the phone of their own accord, _I don't want to see, but I can't help looking..._

One of Sam's eyes started to twitch.

As the shrieks of hilarity died away, Fiona turned ruefully to Dean. "And that's why I embroider nice flowers on my hex bags," she finished, holding up her work for him to see. "Roses. Daisies. Violets. It's safer that way."

Dean's mouth opened and shut a couple of times. "So," he started slowly, "You're telling me that you know about the hex bags, and Mary makes them, and you make them too?" He looked to Sam for some sort of deductive back-up.

The stricken expression on his little brother's face suggested that, having already been traumatized by hearing Ladies Of A Certain Age discuss Bobby's desirability so lasciviously, Sam's brain had gone into some sort of protective emergency shut-down in the face of grandmothers laughing at pornographic embroidery.

"Yrrrrrrrrrrg," went Sam.

"Oh, we all make them, dear," said Mary, "Fiona and I just embroider them. They may only be small spells, but that's no reason not to make them attractive." She inspected the one the brothers had found. "You need to remake this one, Sabine – it looks like a mouse has used it as a birthing suite."

"Hmmmmm, I was going to say the mouse had used it as a restroom," added Sabine thoughtfully. "I really should get another cat." She looked up at Dean. "Do you think the hex bag is the problem?" she asked him. "Do we all need to redo them?"

"You_ all_ make hex bags?" asked Dean faintly.

Maisie was now looking at him as though he was her _savant_-less _idiot savant_ student. "Of course," she said, "Fergus Falls Unaffiliated Cookery & _CRAFT_ Collective. I did tell you."

"Nyeeeeeeeem," went Sam.

"But I thought you meant, you know, stuff like, like, knitting, yeah, knitting, and, and, crochet, and making doilies, and, and...knitting... socks, and, and... stuff..." Dean's voice trailed off.

"Oh, we do that," answered Maisie airily, "But how do you think we get the edge with our baking specialties?"

"The others have even made bags to try to help me and Sadie," remarked Mary mournfully, "But some of us are just were never meant to be bakers. Sadie, now, she could turn out the most amazing doilies, but she baked a sponge cake you could crack atoms with. Accept your limits, and hone your talents, that's the way to go."

"Gnaaaaaaaaaaaaarg" went Sam.

Jimi sniffed at the mousified hex bag, then settled down and began to chew on it contentedly.

"It's the teething," said Mary, beaming indulgently at the pup, "At that age, they'll just chew on anything. It won't hurt him, will it, Sabine?"

"Oh, no," cut in Dean, feeling the hysterical laughter bubbling just beneath the surface, "It's not like he's a gluten-intolerant chupacabra."

"Is your brother all right?" asked Angela in a concerned voice, looking at Sam.

"Oh, he's fine," Dean giggled, "I think his brain just overheated a bit. He was probably frightened by some embroidery as a child, or possibly even just now..."

"Hnrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrl," went Sam.

"Boy probably just needs a drink," suggested Ania, pouring a generous glass of bubbly and pushing it into Sam's hand. The younger Winchester looked at it, then downed it in one gulp.

"Buuuuuuuuerp," went Sam, holding out his glass again.

"What about you Dean?" asked Mary, "You look like you could use one too."

"Yeah," he agreed. "Hand me that bottle. And a straw."

* * *

Phew - a long chapter, but the end is in sight! Naughty, naughty Shilo-Shadow made a naughty, naughty suggestion about why Dean hates lavender - why do the people on this site enjoy torturing him so? - so maybe we can work in a traumatic flashback after all. Of course, if anyone else has any other suggestions, he may have had more than one traumatic experience... remember, every time you leave a review, a sponge cake rises. Oh, on the topic, I'm being pestered by a couple of the vermin I believe are referred to as 'plot bunnies' - does anyone know a reliable way to kill them? They're so annoying now I'm back at work.


	7. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

"So, basically, we're back to square one," moped Dean, as they left the Fuckers meeting. He turned briefly to wave goodbye to the ladies seeing them out. Even the supplies of not-quite-right-but-still-extremely-yummy baked items he'd been sent away with couldn't make him feel better. "There's no poltergeist, there are witches but all they do is cast spells on their ovens, at least one of them uses lavender for which she deserves to die, I wasn't allowed to gank anything, I learned a lot more about Bobby's past than is good for my mental well-being, and..." he turned to Sam, and sighed. "And my little brother has suffered some sort of brain meltdown and now Satellite Sam is not currently orbiting Planet Coherent. Fuck My Life."

Sam hiccupped gently.

"I'd feel better if I could just kill something," Dean practically whined.

"Hrumf," went Jimi sympathetically from the back seat, in between chomps on the mouse-abused hex bag, which he had decided was Teething Toy Of The Moment.

"Can we stop on the way back?" asked Sam in the carefully not-slurred voice of someone who has had perhaps just a little bit more to drink than is completely sensible, "I need more shower gel. I'm going to need looooooads to get rid of the smell. And some mind bleach. That would be good, too."

"What the hell is it?" Dean mumbled to himself, scowling at Sam. "You're not helping, you know," he added, "Marinating the database in alcohol."

"Mind bleach," Sam repeated firmly. "I need it." He looked at Dean seriously. "It's real, isn't it?" he asked in a resigned tone, "I thought it was just a joke, something somebody made up. It's not. It's real, Dean – it. Is. REAL." He shuddered a little, then glared accusingly at Dean. "You're my brother."

"Er, yeah," agreed Dean carefully, "Although you have from time to time expressed a profound belief that one of us is adopted. Or from another galaxy."

"You're my _big_ brother," Sam qualified, and... _oh, God_, thought Dean, _that's not just a bitchface, that's..._

"Is your bottom lip sticking out?" he asked.

"My big brother," continued Sam, the bottom lip not just sticking out but wobbling slightly, "Is supposed to protect me."

"Yeah, still with you so far," Dean said warily.

"My big brother is supposed to _protect_ me," repeated Sam – _wobble wobble_ – kicked-puppy-with-tin-of-stones-tied-to-its-tail eyes boring into Dean. "Why didn't you do something?"

"Er, about what?" The Impala pulled off the road, into the parking lot of their motel.

"I don't want it to get me," said Sam in a small voice, sounding – _wobble wobble_ – about four years old.

"Sam, what do you think is after you?" asked Dean, killing the engine. It was entirely possible that Sam's frontal lobes had figured something out, and were currently trying to bypass his hindbrain to make contact. They'd have to do it in code, since the Thought Centre and Speech Synthesizer were currently being, well, marinated, and might not manage to communicate in plain English.

Sam stared at him for a moment, then...

"Rule 34!" he wailed, throwing himself at Dean, who caught him in an awkward hug. "Rule 34 is going to get meeeeeee!"

Dean rolled his eyes and asked the universe, _Why me?_

"No it's not, Sammy," he reassured his brother, hugging him back, "Nothing's going to get you..."

"I don't want to think about Bobby having sex!" howled Sam. "I don't want to dream about Bobby having sex! It's like thinking about your parents having sex! It's not riiiiiight!"

"Right with you there, Tiger," Dean sympathised, patting Sam's trembling shoulder soothingly. Sam pulled away from him.

"You won't let it get me, right?" he asked with another hiccup. _Wobble-wobble._

"Course not, Sammy," smiled Dean, "Being a big brother means protecting your baby brother from any nasty rules or dreams or pieces of hard-core needlework that try to scare him."

Sam's face lit up in a huge smile. "You're awesome, Dean," he sighed. "You're bossy. But awesome."

"And you're a little the worse for wear," replied Dean, getting out of the car and fishing for the room key, "Just because it had bubbles in it doesn't mean it's soda, Sam."

Thankfully, Sam had just enough co-ordination left to get himself ready for bed without big brother intervention. More or less.

"Okay, sleepytime now, Sam," said Dean, after helping him find that last pesky armhole in his sleep t-shirt.

"What are you doing?" Sam asked, listing slightly to starboard where he sat. Jimi jumped onto his bed, and crawled into his lap.

"Trying to figure out what the hell we're dealing with," lied Dean, starting up the laptop.

"You mean, the Pastry Monster?" asked Sam earnestly.

"Yeah, Sammy, the evil Pastry Monster. The malevolent distant relative of the Cookie Monster."

"You finding anything on Pastry Monsters? _hic!"_

"No, not yet."

"Maybe there isn't anything on Pastry Monsters," mused Sam in a thoughtful voice. "Yet. Maybe, maybe, we're the first people ever to encounter a Pastry Monster! Nobody's ever seen one before!" He smiled. "We can write the book on the Pastry Monster, Dean! We can be the world experts on the Pastry Monster! We discovered it, we can name it, even, we can call it, call it..." he frowned in concentration, "Monsterus cakefuckerus."

"Yeah, we can do that," smiled Dean, "But we don't even know what it looks like. Can't write the book if we can't even put a drawing of it on the cover."

"Then we have to set a trap for it," Sam replied, "And, and see what it looks like. We get a biiiiiiiiiiiig box, right, and – _hic!_ – we bait it with a cake, right, and, and, we hide behind the bench, and we wait for the Pastry Monster to come and mess with the cake, then we pull the string, and, and, the box falls down, and..." he waved his hands around, "And, we take its picture!" He beamed at Dean like a pupil who has just completed a particularly difficult calculus problem and is anticipating another gold star.

Dean stared at him. "You know, you might just have an idea there," he said thoughtfully. "Maybe we do need to use bait to get a look at this thing." He smiled at Sam. "Your Upstairs Brain is an amazing creature, Sammy, even stewing gently in cheap booze."

"Really?" Sam looked at him slightly cross-eyed. "Wow. I just wondered if it was Sadie."

"Who?" asked Dean.

"Sadie," repeated Sam, with another hiccup. "Mary mentioned her, but she wasn't there. She's a lousy cook."

_Oh crap,_ thought Dean, _did we really overlook something that simple?_

"Sam," began Dean, "Next time we get stuck on a case, remind me to feed you booze. Preferably something cheap and bubbly."

"Okay," replied Sam with a resolute expression, "I'll do that. You can rely on me, bro." He paused briefly to hiccup. "Do I get a gold star?"

"You get two, bro. And an elephant stamp. Now, why don't you go to bed?"

The stricken four-year-old look reappeared on Sam's face. "I don't want to have nasty dreams."

"You won't have nasty dreams, Tiger," Dean reassured him, pulling back the covers and chivvying him into bed.

"I don't want to dream about Bobby having sex," pleaded Sam. Jimi whuffed reassuringly.

"You won't Sammy," Dean repeated, thinking to himself, _But now I probably will, you bitch._

"I don't want to dream about Bobby in the library stacks," Sam curled in on himself, "Doing things with ladies..."

"It's okay, Sammy..."

"While the other ladies stand around and, and, capture the moment in, in, obscene embroidery..." _Wobble-wobble_.

"There will be no X-rated needlework Sam," promised Dean, "Look, here's Jimi to keep watch." The pup curled himself against Sam, and licked his nose. "He's going to be right here with you, and if any nasty dreams or scary Rules try to sneak up on you, he's going to chase them away, okay?"

"Okay." Sam's hand crept out to pat Jimi, who humphed contentedly and settled against him. "Jimi's awesome, too. Probably gets it from you. On account of you being his grandfather." He grinned again in a slightly unfocussed fashion. "You two are my Axis Of Awesome."

"I don't even want to think about where that comes from," muttered Dean, turning the bedside light out. "Night, Sam."

He left his brother in the care of Jimi, and went back to the laptop. Something was bugging him now...

"Dean?" came a small sleepy voice from Sam's bed.

"Yeah, Sammy?" he answered.

"Our parents never had sex, did they?"

Dean cleared his throat. "No, Sam," he said with conviction, "Absolutely not. They held hands from time to time, but I can guarantee you that they never, ever went any further than that. So you can never have nightmares about it, because it never happened. Q.E.D."

Sam sighed happily. "Thanks, Dean," he whispered.

Dean rolled his eyes and turned back to the laptop. If he had to lie through his teeth to stop his baby brother having nightmares, that's what he'd do. If he had to say, with a straight face, that monsters didn't exist, that Dad would be back soon, that everything was all right and he had nothing to worry about, that Mother Theresa got her start working in strip clubs, that's what he'd do.

Anyway, there'd be plenty of time to tease Sam mercilessly tomorrow, after he called Maisie and made arrangements to set up a Pastry Monster trap.

He smiled fondly at his little brother, snoring gently, cuddled up with Jimi, hiccupping occasionally in his sleep. He didn't want anything to disturb that.

No, right now, what he really wanted, was to find out what the hell Rule 34 was.

* * *

Every time you leave a review, your parents do not have sex. What other motivation could you possibly need?


	8. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

"Okay, so you want the butter soft, but not melted," explained Maisie the next day as preparations for baiting the trap began. Dean watched carefully, brow furrowed in concentration, as she squished the butter into the sugar mix. "This is called 'creaming' the butter and the sugar – you start it with a fork, then beat it with a wooden spoon until it's light and fluffy". She demonstrated, then handed him the fork.

"We'll be baiting our Pastry Monster trap soon, Sammy," he beamed, squishing away enthusiastically.

Sam gave him a wan smile, and took another sip of coffee.

"Technically, we'll be baiting a trap for a Cookie Monster, since you're not actually making pastry," he said in a quiet voice.

"Details details," said Dean airily, waving his fork, "I'm betting it won't be blue and furry and talk politically correct crap about 'sometimes' food."

"So, Maisie," continued Sam, "What can you tell us about Sadie? Mary mentioned her last night." He winced as if it was painful to remember. "I don't remember meeting her. Mary implied that she's not much of a baker."

"Wasn't," corrected Maisie sadly, "She wasn't much of a baker. My grandmother once told me that really talented bakers are born, not trained. Most folks who want to try can get pretty good results with practice" – she paused and smiled at Dean, who had swapped to the wooden spoon and was thrashing away at the contents of the bowl (_Yeah, brown-nosing special school teacher's pet,_ thought Sam) – "But sometimes, all the determination in the world, and a little Craft to help, just aren't enough. Mary will tell you herself that she's one of those. So was Sadie. So especially was Sadie. She wasn't just a bad baker – she was an anti-baker."

"Where is Sadie now?" asked Sam. "Dean, do you have to mix that so loudly?"

"Just creaming the butter and sugar, Sammy," replied his brother, smirking at him. "Want me to make you some with aspirin instead of chocolate chips?"

Sam muttered something uncharitable under his breath. Jimi, still chewing his security hex bag, rested his chin on Sam's foot, and gave a sympathetic little huff.

"Sadie died about a year ago," Maisie told them.

The Winchesters exchanged A Look. "How did she die?" queried Sam.

"Tragic circumstances. Her kitchen exploded. The arson squad investigated, but ruled death by misadventure. Apparently, she'd been trying a new recipe, a concoction of her own: a combination of a crème-brulee, a brandy trifle, profiteroles and a bombe Alaska."

"Sounds complicated," commented Sam. "What actually happened?"

"Tragic, just tragic," Maisie repeated. "She couldn't manage any of those individually at all, though God knows she tried. Her crème-brulees came out more like working miniature models of the La Brea tarpits, her brandy trifles could strip paint, her profiteroles were harder than granite, and her bombe Alaska, well..."

"More like bombe Hiroshima?" suggested Dean.

"Exactly. Apparently there was some mishap with the oven, the gas torch, and some custard powder. The whole house went up in a fireball. Red-hot high-speed profiteroles destroyed the roof of the high school gymnasium three miles away. Globs of flaming meringue rained down on a major intersection, causing traffic chaos. The brandy trifle broke up on re-entry, and damaged half the stock of a car dealership as write-offs. All that was left of her was her hands, inside her oven gloves. But at least her family had something to bury."

"How did Sadie feel about being a, um, anti-baker?" Sam asked, as Dean showed Maisie his progress.

"That's very good, now you add the eggs and vanilla and beat it all up again." Dean set obediently to his next task, and Maisie turned to Sam. "Oh, that was the real tragedy," she sighed, "Sadie might have been a lousy baker, but she made doilies that the rest of us could only dream about. The most beautiful, delicate filigree crochet. She had a real gift. Like Mary and her embroidery. Unlike Mary, she couldn't be content with the talent she did have. I'm afraid that Sadie did have a bit of a resentful streak. We tried to make her feel good about what she could do, but..." She smiled sadly. "It was always worst at this time of year, coming up to State Fair time – most of us managed to pick up a prize or two for our specialty recipes, but poor Sadie could never produce anything that was anywhere near good enough even to enter."

"What do you think, Sam?" asked Dean, "Resentful ghost hanging around?"

"Could be," his brother agreed. "If there's something constituting remains hanging around. Maisie, do you have anything in the house that belonged to Sadie?"

"I have several doilies she made," Maisie replied, indicating the one in the middle of the kitchen table. "We all do. We liked to keep them prominently visible, trying to show her how much we admired her talent." She peered into Dean's mixing bowl. "You've done a good job there," she told him, as he smiled under her praise. _Huh, teacher's pet, should be on a leash..._

"Yeah, well, he's had lots of practice doing beating actions with his right hand," muttered Sam low enough that only Dean could hear him.

"I think Sam could use another coffee," Dean suggested to Maisie. "Do I put the chocolate chips in yet?"

"No, the flour goes in first, one spoon at a time," she told him, demonstrating. "This is called folding in." Dean went back to work, and Maisie took Sam's mug. "You really think it could be Sadie sabotaging us?"

"She's a prime candidate, all right," answered Sam. "Dean, will you stop mixing so loudly? You're doing it on purpose!"

"Folding, Sam, not mixing, I'm folding. Folding in," smirked Dean. "Hopefully, once we get these in the oven, whatever it is will turn up, and we'll find out." He looked down at his cookie mix. "Can I taste it now?" He poked at the gooey mixture, and made a noise of enjoyment as he crammed a generous glob into his mouth. "Oh, no wonder they make cookie dough ice-cream and cookie-dough cheesecake, this stuff is awesome."

"You do look very domestic," Sam admitted, " Although I don't think you're supposed to wear so much of your dough. I really never imagined you as a keen baker, dude."

"You know me, Sammy, always willing to learn a new life skill," Dean smiled, wiping the back of a hand across his face and leaving a floury mark. "Just think, I'll be able to make my own cookies! Bobby will be impressed. And chicks love it when guys can do this sort of stuff."

"I might've known there'd be an ulterior motive," mumbled Sam, gratefully accepting another mug of coffee from Maisie.

"They'll be useful for you, too," Dean commented, "I bet they'll be a great hangover cure. Or for those cravings you get when you're feeling hormonal. So next time you drink too much, or you have a PMS, I can throw these at you until you're fit for human company again."

"Jerk."

**...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... **

"They look too good to sacrifice to the Pastry Monster," sighed Dean, looking pleased with his handiwork: balls of cookie dough sat on a tray, ready for the oven. He contemplated them briefly, then picked one up and popped it into his mouth, groaning happily.

"I'be awesombe, Sabby," he declared, "By coogies are zo awesombe, dey tashte gread eben bevore they're cooged. You wand sombe?"

"No. Again," answered Sam, checking the shotguns and thinking that perhaps once they'd tested their theory, a slice of dry toast would be nice. "Are you ready to go?"

"Operation Cookie Bake is ready to roll," Dean confirmed, picking up his tray and waiting for Sam's signal. Sam switched on the EMF meter, called Jimi, and gave Dean the thumbs up.

Dean put his tray into the oven, threw off his apron, and joined Sam hunkered behind the bench at the other end of the kitchen.

"These only take about ten minutes to cook," whispered Dean, "Nine for fan-forced, so if anything's going to happen, it'll happen soon..."

Simultaneously, Jimi growled, the EMF meter squealed, and the temperature in the kitchen noticeably dropped several degrees.

"Showtime." Sam flicked off the meter as Dean shushed Jimi, and picked up a small mirror. He peered carefully around the corner of the bench.

A flickering image, reminiscent of an old cellulose film, wavered then pulled into focus. A short woman, in her fifties, with her grey hair in a bun. She was wearing an apron over a floral dress, and oven gloves. As he watched, she scowled at the oven, then opened the door.

"Oh yeah, it's her," growled Dean, "And the bitch is fucking with my cookies!"

"So, what now?" Sam whispered back.

"We fill her full of salt, what else? She's messing with my baking!" Dean stood up, levelling the shotgun at her. "Hey, Sadie, do you see me unravelling your doilies?"

The spectre turned to him, and grimaced, raising her oven gloves threateningly. Before he could pull the trigger, something small and hard and travelling very fast struck him on the elbow.

"Sonofabitch!" he yelled, shaking his arm up and down.

"Dean!" Sam leapt up from hiding, ready to blast Sadie's ghost with salt.

He was hit almost smack between the eyes by a large glob of something worryingly sticky. "Aaaaaaargh!" he yowled, swiping at his face, "It's in my hair! IT'S IN MY HAIR!"

"Arf!" barked Jimi, clearly deciding that he wasn't happy about his Hunters being attacked. He jumped up from the floor, and headed for the oven.

Sadie turned to look at him, and shrieked in a hideous voice:

"Get out of the kitchen you filthy creature!"

"YAAAAIPE!" Jimi's little legs backpedalled furiously to avoid skidding right into her. She shrieked her outrage again, raising her gloves as he turned tail and headed back for their hiding place behind the bench.

"Don't you touch him!" roared Dean. The irate ghost turned back towards the Winchesters, and launched another missile.

Fortunately, her aim was less than perfect; she missed Dean as he and Sam ducked behind the bench, Jimi scooting in between them.

Unfortunately, she managed to hit the large tin marked 'Flour'. It tipped over and dumped its contents over all three of them.

"_YAAAAAAIPE_!" yelped Jimi again, taking to his heels once more. In a puff of flour, he headed for the door at high speed, and disappeared right through it, leaving a puppy-shaped flour outline stencilled on the wood panelling.

"You okay, Sam?" asked Dean, rubbing his numb elbow and shaking flour out of his hair.

His brother was still swiping at his face. "I can't see," he answered frantically, "I can't see!"

"That's it," growled Dean, picking up the shotgun again, "This bitch is SO full of salt..." he stood up and took aim. "Nobody dicks with my brother, my dog OR MY FUCKING BAKING!" he yelled, pulling the trigger.

The ghost of Sadie disappeared in an expanding spread of rock salt.

"Is she gone?" asked Sam. Dean reached for a nearby dishcloth, and pushed it into his brother's hand.

"She's gone, Sammy," he said, as Sam wiped frantically at his face.

"Gah! It's ectoplasm!" he moaned, "Disgusting ectoplasm! She threw ECTOPLASM at me! Dude, it's in my hair! IN - MY - HAIR! Disgusting ghost-snot ECTOPLASM! It's dissolving my eyeballs! I'm gonna be blind..."

"Er, I don't think so, bro," remarked Dean, poking gently at the gloopy mess, now also dusted with flour, gumming up Sam's hair and face. "In fact," he continued, sniffing carefully at the glob on his finger, then tasting it, " I think you'll find it's meringue." He screwed his nose up. "Ew, it's not nice meringue. It's salty. Who makes salty meringue?"

"You sure?" asked Sam, finally wiping at least his face free of the muck. "That's better, I thought I'd lost my sight there for a minute..."

"Well, I'd say we've identified our Pastry Monster," decided Dean, wincing as he poked the blossoming bruise on his elbow, "Though I'd like to know what the hell she threw at me. Rocks? Rock cakes, maybe. Anyway, tonight we dance the Salt-And-Burn Tango." He turned to the door where Jimi had blatantly ignored the laws of physics. "I'll just go get Jimi, and SONOFABITCH!" He stumbled as his foot rolled on something small and round, which skittered away across the floor.

"What the hell?" asked Sam, as Dean hopped up and down making unkind suggestions about Sadie's parentage, species and sexual preferences. He retrieved the offending item: it was smaller than a baseball, but harder than a baseball, and its weight suggested that it was possibly made of lead.

"Er, I think you nearly lost an ankle to a cast-iron profiterole," he declared, weighing the small deadly pastry in his hand. "Wow. This thing is as dense as a neutron star, or possibly Paris Hilton. She really was an anti-baker."

"And apparently really pissed about it," grumped Dean, limping to the door to call Jimi back inside. A little white puff-ball with a pair of large, anxious eyes peered up at him.

"Awwww, he looks like a baby polar bear," Dean grinned, trying to dust Jimi down. "What sort of a hellhound are you, hey? Scared of a mean old lady ghost? And cats?" The pup managed to look shamefaced. "Hey, don't worry about it," Dean reassured him, scratching his ears, raising another cloud of flour. "You won't believe some of the things Sam was scared of when he was a kid. Pfah! He's going to need another b-a-t-h."

"Aren't we all," said Sam, mopping despondently at his hair.

"Well, okay, but keep your shorts on, and I'm not washing your back."

Sam scowled at Dean as Maisie joined them.

"Was it Sadie, then?" she asked, taking in the war zone that had only twenty minutes ago been her kitchen.

"If Sadie wore her hair in a bun and was paranoid about animals in the kitchen, it was Sadie," confirmed Sam. "She was wearing oven gloves."

"So, what now?" Maisie queried.

"You tell us where she's buried, then tonight we go to the cemetery, do some digging, and salt and burn her remains," he told her. "Right now, you get on the phone and tell all the other Fuckers to douse any of Sadie's doilies they have in salt and lighter fluid, and burn them."

"Oh, man," moaned Dean, "Look at these, they're ruined." He removed the tray of cookies from the oven, and prodded sadly at the sodden, collapsed heaps of congealed dough.

"What did she do?" asked Maisie.

"She opened the oven door," he explained sadly.

"Well, that would do it," confirmed Maisie, "Opening the oven door while you're baking is pretty much a guarantee of disaster."

"Combine that with the blast of dropped temperature from her manifestation..." mused Sam.

"Double-barrelled sabotage," Dean finished gloomily.

"Why don't you two go get cleaned up, get ready to do your grave-digging tonight," suggested Maisie, "I'll tidy up here."

"Thanks, Maisie," said Sam gratefully, "This ecto-meringue is really scary stuff."

"Me and Jimi are bathing first," declared Dean on the way back to the motel, "On account of you'll use up all the hot water otherwise."

"You only got hit with a profiterole. I got meringued here! I nearly went blind!"

"Why don't you just comb it through and put your rollers in and leave it to set overnight?"

"Dean..."

"Your hair will be shiny, and wavy, and it will bounce up and down as you walk..."

"Dean..."

"...and you'll look so attractive and happy that people will think you're filming a tampon commercial."

"Jerk."

* * *

Thank you encouraging reviewers for your kind remarks. I think we have a chapter or two to go here - and there's a lavender flashback to work in somewhere... apropos of flashback suggestions, might I just point out that Shilo-Shadow and poestheblackcat are seriously twisted individuals. Or they just like torturing Dean. Or they just like nekkid!Dean. There seems to be quite a bit of that about.


	9. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

Jimi was not a happy puppy. He chomped on his hex bag, and whined quietly to himself.

The past few days had been confusing and scary. After the thunderstorm hit the Den, there had been the riding in the car, the strange places with strange smells, then the confrontation with the cat, then the ghost. He had been washed – twice – and now he had been told to stay by himself in the car.

That wasn't so bad, really – the smells and feel of the space told him that this was the Den of his Pack, and that he would be safe here. He knew that his Alpha and Second would come back; since he was too small to leave his dam's side, after they'd first come for him, they had always come back. But it was dark, and his Alpha had been tense, watching his Second anxiously, although he didn't seem to notice.

It was all a bit overwhelming.

And now... some instinct was prodding at him, telling him that something was... wrong.

He whined again. He was quite sure the Alpha wanted him to remain in the Den, to stay safe, to wait until his Pack returned, but... he was agitated now. Something was wrong.

His canine instincts told him that if the Pack was attacked, the pups were supposed to hide, shelter in the Den, survive, let the adults do the fighting. That's just what they had told him to do.

Something deeper and _hotter_ whispered that his Hunters were being threatened.

He stood up, whimpered, and made a decision.

Gripping his hex bag tightly in his mouth for moral support, he backed up as hard as he could against the door behind him.

Then he ran at the opposite door as hard and fast as his little legs could carry him.

**...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... **

The sensible thing to do in future, mused a corner of Sam's mind, the sensible thing to do in future would be to sew Dean's mouth shut before every exhumation they did. Not only would it stop him bitching about taking his turn at digging, it would prevent him from saying stupid things like "Too easy, Sammy, you can kiss the prince then we'll be home and dry before your glass slippers turn back into pumpkins."

Of course, he thought, trying to finish the digging while holding the shotgun at the same time, even if he did somehow manage to get Dean to shut up, the idiot would probably make a point of learning Ameslan for the express purpose of poking Karma with a pointy stick...

They were not home and dry. They were not even home and getting out of their wet clothes. As soon as the fateful words were out of his big brother's mouth, Sadie had manifested, looking very angry indeed, and had hurled Dean into a rosebush before Sam could get a shot off.

"Dean?" he called again, hearing his brother thrashing and swearing.

"I'm fine, Sam," Dean called back, "Just dig!" So Sam had gone back to digging, listening to Dean's running monologue of bad language as he extricated himself from the thorny snare.

"You had to go and tempt fate, didn't you?" grumbled Sam, "You just had to go and make a smartass comment about how easy it was, you know that every time you do that, it's the cue for one pissed off ghost to make a dramatic entrance.

"Just dig, Francis," his brother grumped back, appearing at the side of the grave with his own shotgun, "I don't think this shirt can handle another intimate encounter with OW!" Dean's hand went to the side of his head and came away bloody. "Sonofabitch!" he shouted, looking around for the ghost, "She threw a rock at me!"

"Worse," replied Sam, inspecting the object that had bounced off Dean and down into the open grave, "She threw a profiterole at you."

"Oh great, that's just what OW! OW! FUCK!" Dean ducked, then twitched, then grabbed at his back. "Can we hurry it up down there?" he called, hefting the shotgun, "I just got shot in the ass!"

"I'm doin' it, I'm doin' it," muttered Sam, as his shovel hit wood. He broke through the coffin lid, to reveal two cheerful orange oven gloves. He pulled himself out of the hole, and scrambled for the salt and fuel.

"Where the hell is she?" growled Dean, rubbing his side, "I'm going to fill her so full of salt she'll have to change her name to Pretzel!"

"Behind you!" Sam shouted a warning as Sadie appeared again, oven gloves raised. Dean spun around, but before he could get another shot off, he was hit by a barrage of semi-automatic profiteroles.

"AAAAAAARRRGH!" he yodelled angrily, swatting at the high-speed missiles pelting into him. Sam managed to put a shot into Sadie as Dean stumbled to the ground.

"I'm okay, just torch her!" Swearing under his breath, Sam tore the salt canister open, dumping the contents into the coffin, following it with a generous dousing of lighter fluid.

He was fumbling with a match that refused to light when a sudden chill made him look up.

Sadie was standing on the other side of her opened grave, looking decidedly annoyed.

"Hey! Anti-baker!" called Dean, getting to his feet, "Did anyone ever tell you that your profiteroles were crap? I've eaten rocks that tasted better!" Sam knew without looking that Dean would be smirking as he tried to distract the ghost. "And your meringue – it totally sucks! Where did you learn to cook, anyway, in a lab that made biological weapons? Because I'm pretty sure that there's an international law against stuff like your AAAAAAARRRRRRGH!"

Sam winced, waiting for the sickening smack that would announce his brother's head-first impact with a concrete angel, but instead there was a rustling noise, and a horrified shriek.

He turned around to see Dean's feet sticking out of the largest, densest and somehow most carnivorous-looking lavender bush he'd ever seen. The horrified shrieking continued as the feet started to thrash around.

He turned back to the matches, but the damned things refused to light... finally one caught, but as he turned to drop it into the grave, a searing pain shot up his leg. He dropped the match on the ground, and bent to see a large glob of custard-napalm eating away at his jeans.

He used the empty salt canister to scrape off as much as he could, then reached for the shotgun. Too late; as he looked up to put a round into the ghost, Sadie sent a glob of her toxic meringue at him, hitting him in the face.

He dropped the gun, and the matches, swiping at his face, trying to clear his vision. He was scraping at the sticky goo with one hand, and groping blindly for the matches with the other, while listening to his brother howl in horror at being devoured by a killer lavender bush, when he heard another noise behind him.

"Grrrrrrrrrr-ramph!"

"Jimi!" he called desperately, clearing one eye and getting a fuzzy look at the pup behind him, "What are you doing! Get back to the car!"

"Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr," went Jimi again, chomping determinedly into his hex bag. Sam heard the ghost shriek in outrage.

"You filthy animal!" she screamed, "Get out of the kitchen!" Jimi ran straight past her. He disappeared through a headstone, a glob of meringue splatting into it behind him.

"What's happening?" screamed Dean, struggling in the clutches of the homicidal lavender bush.

"It's Jimi!" Sam called back, finding the matches, "He's distracting her!"

He heard another determined growl, another angry shriek, and the splat of ectoplasmic meringue against stone as the pup dodged another gloopy missile, while his sticky fingers struggled with the matches. They flared and sputtered, but would not light.

"Come on, come on," he hissed, willing one to burst into flame.

"Torch her, Sammy, I'm being eaten alive here!" wailed Dean, flailing in the shrubbery.

"They won't light!" Sam shouted back, "They're all sticky! Oh, no..."

"Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr". Sadie had cornered Jimi against the edge of the open grave. He backed up slowly until a hind paw hit empty air.

"You filthy, filthy, dirty CREATURE," the spectre ground out, "Get OUT of the kitchen!"

"Jimi!" Sam called him desperately, "Jimi! Hey, bitch, pick on someone your own size!"

Sadie grimaced at the pup, and raised her oven gloves.

Jimi glared at her, and, gripping his hex back tight for courage, took a final step back.

He squatted, and...

Took care of business.

**...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... **

"Hey, it's okay little guy, I'm fine," Dean shakily reassured Jimi after Sam had pulled him out of the lavender bush. Jimi clearly didn't believe him; he could feel the anxiety washing off his Alpha, and kept licking at Dean's face as he cradled the pup in his arms. "Your timing could use a little work, Sam," he said to his brother with a wry smile, "Next time, a little quicker with the matches, perhaps?"

"It wasn't me," grinned Sam, "I couldn't get the matches to light. It was Jimi."

"Jimi?" Dean looked down at the pup. "What did you do?"

"Same way he set your shorts on fire, dude," smiled Sam.

"Really?" He looked down at the pup again, beaming at him. "Well, aren't you just a clever boy? Yes you are! Yes you are!" Jimi basked in the approval, tail wagging furiously.

"He must've pulled his walk-through-doors trick to get out of the car," Sam continued, "And he did it with headstones too, dodging Sadie's meringue attacks." He swiped ineffectively at his hair. "It's a trick I'd like to learn. I only just washed this out a few hours ago."

"Greater love hath no man than this; that he will lay down his 'do for his friends. Or his brother." Dean smiled and hugged Jimi. "Your daddy would be proud of you."

"And greater love hath no dog that he will put down his favourite toy to kiss your boo-boos better," added Sam, ruffling the puppy's ears. "If he can learn to get control of his... unusual talents, he's going to be a really Hunting asset. You okay, bro?" Sam was not prepared to believe that Dean had escaped without some sort of trauma after being trapped in a lavender bush. He just hoped it wouldn't provoke one of _those_ nightmares...

"Like I told Jimi, Sam, I'm fine," Dean replied, rolling his eyes. "I think I'll have some impressive bruises from intercontinental ballistic profiteroles, but I'm fine. Well, as fine as any sane man can be after being almost eaten by a lavender Triffid." He shuddered, then frowned at his brother's leg. "What happened to you? Is that a burn?"

"Sadie got me with a round of La Brea Brulée," Sam explained. "I think it dissolved my jeans."

"That woman really was a menace to society," Dean decided, putting Jimi down. "She should've stopped trying to bake, and gone into defence science. If only she'd used her powers for good."

"Never mind, she's gone now," said Sam. "The Fuckers are free to get on with winning prizes."

"You won't get to write a dissertation on the Pastry Monster, though," sighed Dean sadly. "No PhD for you. Which is a shame, I was kind of looking forward to having a doctor in the family."

"You want to play doctors, Dean, go and find some unsuspecting young lady who has her own thermometer. I hope she makes you wear the nurse uniform. Gah," Sam screwed up his face and picked at his meringue-clotted hair, "Can we fill in this grave and get gone? I want to get back to our room and wash this crap off again before somebody from the bomb squad tries to subject me to a controlled detonation."

**...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... **

"Deeeeeeeeeeeeeean! My shower gel is nearly empty. Again!"

"Thank you for the information, Sam. You know I like to keep informed. I will prepare a press release immediately."

"Oh, God, Dean, tell me you didn't use my shower gel to wash the dog."

"Okay: Sam, I didn't use your shower gel to wash the dog."

"Then where the hell has it all gone?"

"I used it when I gave Jimi a b-a-t-h."

"You just told me you didn't use it to wash the dog!"

"You told me to tell you I didn't use it to wash the dog. I was just doing what you told me to do, Sam. I was just following orders."

"The Nuremberg Defence didn't work in 1945, and it's not working now, Dean."

"Well, I figured that anything that was suitable for your delicate, sensitive skin was safe to use on a puppy."

"Asshole... hey, if you used the shower gel on Jimi, where has all my shampoo gone? Did you use that on the dog too?"

"No. I used that on me."

"_WHAT?_ You told me you hadn't used it!"

"Well, I hadn't. Until I needed it."

"Why? Why the hell did you feel the need to use up all my shampoo on yourself?"

"Because I used up all your shower gel washing the dog. Duh."

"One of us is definitely adopted, jerk."

* * *

Will Sam's concerns be realised? Will Dean have one of _those_ nightmares after his Close Encounter Of The Lavender Kind? Will my wonderful reviewers have yet more appallingly traumatic things for him to have nightmares about?

Hang on, the Chocolate Powered Update Inspiration Fairy is talking to me... she says... she says... she says, send more reviews... she says, further reviews will result in nekkid nightmares for Dean... geez, she's another sadistic let's-torture-Dean bitch, who knew? Hang on, O Great CPUI Fairy, don't go, I have to ask... oh, damn, she's gone. I meant to ask her, does that mean Dean will have nightmares about being nekkid, or he will be nekkid while having nightmares? Crap, this writing gig is harder than it looks.


	10. Chapter 9

**Please note:** Additional author credit for this chapter goes to Shilo-Shadow and poestheblackcat for their somewhat demented suggestions regarding Dean's traumatising encounters with lavender...

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Chapter 9

Maisie convinced them to stay an extra day before heading back to Bobby's yard – when she told them that the Fuckers wanted to see them off with morning tea, Dean didn't take much convincing.

"I've checked with the others," she told him, "And our recipes are coming out just fine again. I think mostly we're just looking forward to showing off."

"That's great news, Maisie," he replied, "We'd love to drop by before we head off."

"You've been such a great help," she continued, "And all the ladies want to know if there's anything we can do for you."

"You could write down that cookie recipe for me," said Dean, as Sam rolled his eyes. "I want to impress Bobby with my domesticity."

Maisie laughed heartily at the other end of the phone. "I can do that. We'll see you tomorrow."

"Do you always think with your stomach?" asked Sam, looking up from the laptop.

"Not always," his brother answered, "According to you, anyway, I frequently think with my Downstairs Brain." Sam scowled at him. "Oh, come on, it'll be great, think of the baking! Look, Jimi is happy about it." Jimi had wormed his way into Dean's lap and was soliciting a tug-of-war with his hex bag. "Today can be a day off. You can nerd it up at the library, maybe get cornered in the stacks," the scowl deepened, "And I have three phone numbers to choose from. I'm thinking number three, the jogger, she was very keen to pat the puppy."

"The way you say that it sounds like a euphemism for something I do not want to walk in on," Sam grumbled. "I'm going out. I need more shower gel. And shampoo. You want anything?"

"Get me pie," ordered Dean. "And some chicken wings for His Awesomeness, I want to see if they have the same anti-lavender effect they had on his dad." He smiled at the pup, and patted his head.

"I look forward to the day when your calorific intake finally catches up with your ageing metabolism," Sam told his brother, "Because while you struggle to do up your pants, I will take a certain pleasure in saying 'I told you so'."

"Better get yourself some hygiene products too," Dean added, "Because you have such a raging case of Pre-Manperiod Sam, it can only be a day or so away." Sam departed with a double-barrelled glare of Bitchface #1™.

"It's a good thing we have you with us," Dean told Jimi, "You're better than a hot water bottle; I'll need you to cuddle up to him when the cramps hit. Travelling with him can be difficult enough as it is. I'm telling you, little dude, chicken wings SO do not work on Sam..." as Jimi play-growled and wrestled for his hex bag, a thought struck Dean. He took his phone out again, and called Maisie back.

"Maisie! Hi, yeah, it's me again. Look, could I get Mary's number? There may be something she can do for me..."

**...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... **

Sam had to agree, it was a magnificent spread. Dean went from one plate to the next in a daze of ecstasy, wearing the expression of a man who's died and gone to Heaven to discover that not only do they have his favourite beer on tap, but the pizza delivery is practically instantaneous, with the only delay being due to the delivery boy having to fight his way through the crowds of strippers who are constantly banging on the door.

After he realised that there would be no champagne this early in the day, Sam did brighten up considerably, and tried several items himself.

When they finally bid goodbye to the Fuckers and departed, the Impala was loaded with boxes, bags and packets of cakes, cookies and pastries, many of them for Bobby, along with messages demanding that Bobby find time to come visit, and reassurances that his _virtus_ would be safe, even if his arteries would not.

"Dean, do you think you could possibly wait until we get back before you start sampling our haul?" asked Sam. "Haven't you just stuffed yourself with enough refined carbohydrate to provide electricity for a small third world country for several months?"

"These are great," mumbled Dean through a mouthful of something crunchy and delicious, ignoring his brother, "I'm getting chicken, and cheese, and something else... Who made these?"

Sam consulted the neatly written note that had come with the bag Dean had stuck his hand into. He smiled. "It's from Mary," he said. "Dear Dean and Sam, I have finally found something that I can bake!"

"Go Mary!" cheered Dean, popping another small cookie into his mouth. "She really has found her groove – I think I might be getting addicted."

"I have to thank you for the inspiration to try something different..." read Sam.

"Maybe she just has a knack with savouries," suggested Dean, spraying crumbs as he spoke. "Try one of these, Sam, they're not sweet, you might like 'em."

"... and I hope little Jimi enjoys his Cheesy Chicken dog treats..." Sam finished, beaming at Dean.

Dean paused mid-chew.

"I put some pulverised dried liver in them too, because my son's dog loves the stuff. Let me know what he thinks of them. Affectionately, Mary." Sam took one of the small hard cookies, and passed it over to Jimi in the back seat. The pup sniffed at it, then took it and began chewing enthusiastically.

"He likes them too," Sam commented. "If you're lucky, he might share the rest of them with you."

Dean shrugged, and took another dog treat from the bag. "If he's lucky, I might share with him. They really do taste good." He grinned at Sam, who sighed philosophically.

"Well, I suppose the worst they can do to you is make your hair shiny and your eyes bright," he mused. "But if you start humping my leg, I'm confiscating them."

**...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... **

The trip back to Bobby's yard was much less eventful than their previous journey. Jimi sat in the back, alternatively napping and gnawing on either a Cheesy Chicken treat or his hex bag, while Dean grazed on their haul of baked goods.

"He's travelling really well," commented Dean, watching the pup in the mirror, "Maybe he'll grow out of the carsick thing." He looked across at Sam, who had abandoned his crossword and was looking out the window, squirming uncomfortably. "You, on the other hand, appear to be growing back into it. Didn't you go before we left?"

"What? No! I mean, yes! No, I mean..." Sam grimaced, and put a hand on his stomach. "I just feel a bit... "

"You feeling sick, Sam?" asked Dean, joking forgotten.

"No, not really," Sam answered, shifting again, "Just a bit... queasy, I guess."

Dean pulled off the road. "Two minute stop," he announced. "You walk around in the fresh air, Jimi can have a bathroom break."

That seemed to do the trick. Sam felt better, and went back to his crossword as they set off.

Less than an hour later, Sam was squirming, face pale, again.

"Sam?" asked Dean with concern, "You okay?"

"It's nothing," his brother replied with a grimace, "I'm fine."

"Maybe you should eat something," suggested Dean, "It seems to be working for Jimi. Try a Cheesy Chicken treat."

Dean pulled over. Sam walked around the car, and got back in, picking up his crossword. They set off.

An hour later, they stopped for gas.

"You haven't been carsick since you were eight years old, bro," Dean commented, looking at his brother's face, "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," Sam insisted, his face colouring slightly, "I'll just... stretch my legs."

When they hit the road again, Dean insisted that Sam eat something. Sam selected a cherry pastry, and managed to drop his pen under the seat.

"Damn," he muttered, fishing on the floor for it, "I've nearly finished, too..." his voice trailed off as his hand closed on something besides his pen under the seat. Frowning, he pulled it out.

It was a hex bag.

"What the hell is this?" he asked, turning to Dean.

Dean coloured slightly. "Um," he answered.

"Dean," said Sam pleasantly, "What is this?"

"It's a hex bag, Sam," answered Dean brightly.

"Yes, I know it's a hex bag." He inspected it more closely – it had a pretty good rendition of the Impala embroidered on it. "It's a hex bag with your car embroidered on it."

"Er," said Dean.

"Dean," continued Sam in his dangerously reasonable tone, "Why is there a hex bag, with the car embroidered on it, hidden under the seat?"

"Uh," said Dean.

Sam opened the bag and tipped the contents into his hand: a kidney bean, a lentil, a dried broccoli floret, a corn kernel, a raisin, and a small tangle of what looked suspiciously like his own hair. His eyes narrowed.

"Dean, did you put this hex bag under the seat?"

"No."

"Dean, did _you_ put this hex bag under the seat?"

"No!"

"Dean..."

"No!"

"DEAN!"

"Okay, yes," Dean confessed.

"And where did it come from, Dean?"

"Well," began Dean, "You know how Maisie asked if there was anything the Fuckers could do for us?"

Sam stared at him.

"Well, after you left to get your hygiene products yesterday, I had an idea..."

Sam stared at him.

"And I rang Mary, and asked if she could maybe do one of her hex bags, just a small one..."

Sam was still staring at him.

"And I explained my little problem, so she did a bag for me, and so she will you stop staring at me like that you're creeping me out!"

"I will keep staring until you tell me what the bag is for," threatened Sam.

"Well, I just thought that since we spend so much time in the car, on the road, it might make things a little bit more... you know..."

"Dean, what – is – this – hex – bag – _for_?" Sam delivered each syllable like a blow with an axe.

Dean swallowed. "It's... it's to stop you farting in the car."

Not taking his eyes off his big brother, Sam rolled the window down, and threw the bag and its contents out the window. He kept staring until Dean thought he could feel his shirt starting to smoulder, then he huffed, fished for his pen, and went back to his crossword.

"Are you angry at me?" Dean asked.

"Why would I be angry at you, Dean?" replied Sam, not looking up, "Why would I possibly be angry at you?"

"I didn't mean it to make you feel sick," his big brother said, "It's just that, well, Mexican food especially, it does affect you..."

Sam contemplated a clue.

"Are you mad at me?" asked Dean again.

Sam thought, then wrote in an answer.

"I'm sorry, bro," said Dean contritely.

Sam chewed on is pen, then shuffled the letters of an anagram.

"Dude, say something!" yelped Dean.

"I have just one thing to say to you, Dean," announced Sam, writing in another answer, "You have to sleep sometime."

**...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... **

That night, Jimi huddled in his blanket as Sam huddled in his bed, both of them trying to ignore the noises of distress indicating that Dean was in the clutches of a nightmare. The pup whimpered, and slunk over to Sam's bed for reassurance.

"It's okay, little guy," Sam whispered, sounding a lot more convincing than he felt, "It's just that... Dean has these nightmares sometimes. We'll be here for him when he wakes up, okay?"

In his sleep, Dean twitched again, drawing in a sobbing breath, as his cracked voice took on a desperate, pleading note.

"No, no, no," he mumbled, gasping, "No, no, please, no..."

Sam hugged Jimi to him, and felt miserably useless. His big brother, who had cared for him, raised him, and protected him since he was six months old, was being tormented by God-knows-what hideous memories; the things Dean had done and endured to protect Sam would've sent any other man utterly insane, and there wasn't a damned thing he could do except listen to his brother's desperate pleading, and pray that it would be over soon...

_Dean shivered; it wasn't cold, but he could feel himself breaking out into a sweat._

"_This isn't real, this isn't real," he told himself sternly, "It isn't happening, it's just a dream..."_

_*Ah, but it __did__ happen, didn't it*? Whispered the viciously sweet little voice on the breeze. Dean spun around._

_Where are you? He demanded, unable to keep the quaver out of his voice._

_*In your memory, Dean*, chuckled the little voice, *In your past, in your history, and in your memory. Do you need reminding?*_

"_No!" It came out as a strangled shriek, his face flushing hot with terror and his knees wobbling, "NO!"_

_*I think someone needs a gentle reminder,* teased the little voice, whistling past in a streak of cloying odour that made his stomach turn, *Do you remember, Dean? Do you remember?*_

"_No. No. Don't do this. Please," he begged, struggling for breath..._

_FLASH_

_He was eleven years old, mortified that Dad thought they needed a neighbour to check on them in his absence, even if Sammy was sick. He'd found a magazine in a dumpster when he took the trash out, a very interesting magazine, with pictures of ladies with no clothes, and he'd felt... funny... and Sam had been asleep, and Dean had looked at the pictures, and looked some more, and felt even... funnier... and then something amazing had happened in his pants, and he'd done what child psychology books would probably have called some 'self-exploration', and perfectly normal for a boy his age, and it felt really awesome, and he'd been concentrating so hard on just how awesome it felt that he hadn't heard Mrs Woodruff from next door let herself into their cruddy apartment, and then he'd been caught with his pants down literally and she had shrieked at him like a harpy and grabbed him by the ear and dragged him next door into her cruddy apartment that smelled like cat pee and the lavender water she drenched herself in, and she'd made him wash his hands with soap that smelled like lavender, and she'd given him a good spray of horrible lavender water because she said he stunk of perversion and she spanked him with the rolled up magazine and told him over and over what a horrible, nasty, dirty, dirty, DIRTY little boy he was and how he was going to make it fall off if he played with it and he'd cried with humiliation_

_FLASH_

_He was seventeen years old, and Dad was tracking a demon or a witch in the small Kentucky town, and after school Dean had picked up the demon's trail, and had chased it into one of the flowering fields of lavender outside town. The demon was heading for the school sports ground and he'd just figured out that it was a demon AND a witch, a demon possessing a witch, a socially inept boy who'd summoned the demon and invited it in, and they were working together in the one body, killing off the school jocks and he had to let Dad know, but while he had it on the run he had to keep chasing it, but the witch had a spell ready for just such an emergency, and when he threw the small orb of pale light backwards over his shoulder as he ran through the lavender, Dean didn't stop to wonder what it had done until they'd emerged from the lavender, and he realised that the spell had made his clothes disappear, and he was standing, stark naked and panting, in front of a busload of cheerleaders, and they dropped their pompoms in shock at the sight of Dean Winchester, naked, chasing after another guy, and he'd run straight home and hidden under the bed and curled up and gone practically catatonic and refused to come out for a day and a half and refused to go back to that school again_

_FLASH_

_He was twenty-two, he'd met her in a bar, and her name was Lavender, and her eyes were lavender, and she had lavender streaks in her hair and a come-hither smile and legs that went all the way up to there and a rack you could rest your beer on and she was HOT and they'd gone back to her place, where the decor was lavender, the curtains were lavender, even the damned kitchen utensils were lavender, but Dean wasn't that interested in the decor, because she was kissing him urgently and her hands were up his shirt and down his pants and she practically dragged him into the bedroom where the linen was lavender and the aromatherapy candles were lavender and holy shit the things she could do with her mouth had him gasping as she undressed him with her eyes and then with her hands and then let him do the same to her, challenging him to get her panties off with his teeth, and he'd obliged, and that's when he'd learned that when the lights go down and the glass steams up, not all women are actually women, and he'd started screaming and grabbed his clothes and run for his life and hadn't realised until he got back to their crappy motel room that he hadn't even stopped to get dressed and he'd driven back naked, still screaming, until Sam opened the door with a shocked face and bundled him inside and waited for him to finish screaming himself hoarse_

Dean woke up, drenched in cold sweat, with a screeching wail that embodied pure, unadulterated terror and broke Sam's heart.

"Dean!" he was across the room and pulling his brother into a hug before the screaming stopped. Jimi jumped up beside him and pressed himself close.

Dean was shaking like a leaf. "I don't want it to fall off," he sobbed into his brother's shoulder, "I don't want it to fall off!"

_Oh, no_, thought Sam, _not the lavender flashbacks_... his brother had never even told their Dad about those episodes, and Sam didn't think he would have understood just how traumatised Dean had been by them anyway.

"It's okay, bro, it's okay," he soothed, rubbing Dean's back.

"The seeds," Dean moaned, "The seeds, they got in everywhere... They were looking at me, Sammy, they were all looking at me..."

"It's history, Dean," Sam shushed him, holding him close, rocking him like a scared child, "Over and gone." Jimi scooted his nose under Dean's hand and whuffed supportively.

"Lavender panties, lavender panties, dear God, it was right in my face, _right in my face_," squeaked Dean, clutching at his brother and his dog like a drowning man clutching at life buoys.

When he finally hiccupped into silence, Sam picked up an almost-clean hankie.

"Blow," he ordered. Dean obediently honked into it.

"Thanks Sammy," he said with a final snuffle. "And Jimi," he nearly managed a small smile, and patted the pup. He turned miserable eyes on them. "I hate lavender."

"Dude, you're soaked," Sam told him, "You cannot go back to sleep like that. Go take a shower, I'll change your bed, then Jimi will be your personal hot water bottle and make sure you don't dream about the l-word again."

Dean managed a small smile again. "You guys are the awesomest little brother and the awesomest dog in the world," he told them.

"Not doing anything you didn't do for me a thousand times," said Sam. "Oh, hey, you'll need this." He threw a plastic bottle at Dean, who caught it with a questioning look. "Shower gel," explained Sam, "A whole bottle of your own. So you don't need to use up mine."

Dean managed and actual smile. "Thanks, Sammy," he said quietly, "Just... thanks."

"Shoo," Sam growled at him.

As Dean left, Sam noticed the empty bottle sticking out from under his bed. He picked it up and grinned at it.

The label read "Dandy Doggy Shampoo – 'Sleepy Puppy' aromatherapy mix, with soothing camomile and bergamot, to help your nervous pooch get a calm night's sleep."

When he heard the shower start, he made his way downstairs to get rid of the evidence. He'd meant to do it earlier, as soon as he'd transferred the contents to the empty shower gel bottle, but Dean had unexpectedly come back upstairs.

Having disposed of the incriminating clue, he headed for the linen cupboard, feeling very brotherly. His brother would get a comfortable night's sleep.

Not only that, he'd have a glossy coat, and be flea-free, too.

**THE END **

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Ta-dah! That's all folks! Thank you dear, encouraging reviewers, for your kind responses to my latest bit of silliness. Now I can get on with writing some more of 'Balls', I suppose. Unless anybody would like a bonus chapter with Dean's chocolate chip cookie recipe? (the recipe I was describing is not for the faint of heart, weak of arteries or diabetic of pancreas.)


	11. Dean's Totally Awesome Choc Chip Cookies

**Dean's Totally Awesome Choc Chip Cookies**

_… as taught to him by Maisie Stewart, with some of his own observations and comments for your cookie convenience._

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Maisie got this recipe from some chick in Australia, so ingredients are measured in metric weights and measures: 1 cup = 250 ml, 1 tsp = 2.5 ml. Get your little brother to do the conversions for you. You may have to promise him a cookie to get him to do this.

**INGREDIENTS:**

200 g butter, softened  
½ cup white sugar  
1½ cup packed brown sugar  
2 eggs  
2 ½ teaspoons natural vanilla extract (not the imitation stuff, it totally sucks)  
2 ½ cups plain flour  
¾ teaspoon salt  
1 teaspoon baking powder  
1 teaspoon bicarb soda  
500g of choc chips or chopped chocolate

- makes about 40 cookies (depending on how greedy you are and how big you make them, and how much cookie dough is lost to tasting, splattering and target practice).

- you can use an electric mixer to beat the butter, sugar, vanilla and eggs together, and also to mix in the flour if you have a mixer with a big enough bowl.

- the butter has to be soft, not melted. Room temperature is usually good. If it's winter and the kitchen is cold, tell your little brother about the birthmark that chick you met last week had, then sit the butter on his head for about ten minutes.

In a large mixing bowl, cream the butter and sugars together. Chop the butter into cubes in the sugar then squish it around with a fork, then swap to the wooden spoon or mixer. If you just go at it straight away with the spoon or mixer, you'll just have chunks of butter flying off into outer space at supersonic speed. You will get called an idjit, and be required to scrape butter off the ceiling. (Standing on a chair holding a puppy up to lick it off works pretty good.) Once it's lightening, beat in the eggs and vanilla until it goes light in colour. Taste it at this point. You don't need to check for anything, but it tastes pretty awesome.

In another bowl, sift together the flour, salt, baking powder and bicarb soda. If you surreptitiously sprinkle a little bit of flour in your brother's hair, he may walk around for the rest of the day looking like a sugar-dusted funnel cake before he notices it. You can make a real mess mixing bicarb soda with vinegar, it's fun, but be prepared to get slapped upside the head. You may also get called idjit again.

Mix the dry ingredients into the butter/sugar/egg/vanilla mix a bit at a time. If you're using a wooden spoon, use the biggest one possible, because you'll want to lick that later. If you're using a mixer, you are not obliged to give your brother a beater.

Mix in the chocolate chips. The dough can be quite stiff if you're using a spoon, and it may be easiest to squish the chocolate through the dough with your hands. Then wave your hand in your brother's face until he squeals like a little bitch. It's also an opportunity to taste the dough, and it's really awesome at this point, when you lick your fingers clean. Make noises while you do this: ten points if you can get your brother to leave the room in disgust.

Refrigerating the dough for at least an hour at this point will give better results, although it's not absolutely essential.

Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees C, 170 for fan-forced. (That's 355 degrees F, or 340 for fan-forced.)

Put golf ball-sized balls of dough 2 inches apart on a baking sheet lined with baking paper. Don't flatten them out, they'll flatten while they cook. Make them bigger if you're feeling greedy. Actually, just make them bigger on principle.

Bake until the edges are just turning brown, 8-9 minutes, 10 absolute maximum. Don't overcook them. Watch them. Carefully. Make them nervous.

Let the cookies cool on the tray – don't try to remove them whilst they're still warm, or they'll disintegrate. However, if your brother does wander back in to see what's going on, because they do smell totally awesome by now, let him try one hot, then you can laugh at him when he burns his mouth on melted chocolate.

Store the cookies in an airtight container. This of course won't be necessary if you intend to eat them all at once. You don't have to share, especially with people who didn't help you do the baking, although if they help with the washing up you might consider it.


End file.
